Estimating support pressure with finite element and convergence-confinement method for different rock masses

Abstract

Support pressure is a key factor in the stability of the excavation area during mining and tunneling. The vital thing desired in an underground engineering structure is to ensure that the structure survives safely throughout its lifetime. For this reason, choosing the right support system at the planning stage is very important for the pressure that will affect the support system must be determined with a certain convergence. This article aims to discuss the support pressures by the finite element method and convergence-confinement method and compare the results. A series of two-dimensional finite element models are established to analyze support pressure with different rock masses selected from the literature. The results reveal that since the convergence-confinement method and the finite element method have high-order relationships regarding support pressures and displacements for weak rock masses, the support pressures and the displacement values for similar conditions can be estimated with the convergence-confinement method, which is more practical than the finite element method.