Paper contribution

Investigation of failure mechanisms around a cylindrical cavity in rock mass under true-triaxial loading

Ravindra Kumar Burnwal; Aditya Singh

Proceedings
EUROCK 2026
Pages
1057-1063
Submitted
28 January 2026
Accepted
15 June 2026
Published
12 August 2026

Summary

Abstract

In underground rock engineering applications such as mining, petroleum engineering, and tunnelling, various types of rock mass failure often occur in the vicinity of underground openings. Although a biaxial stress state exists at the tunnel boundary, the surrounding rock mass experiences a true-triaxial state of stress. This study investigates the failure mechanisms around a cylindrical cavity subjected to true-triaxial loading. The sample consists of a 100 mm side cubic block containing a cylindrical cavity with a diameter of 25 mm, while the outer boundary is maintained at three times the cavity radius to minimise boundary effects. The artificial rock mass is prepared in the laboratory using cement-based mortar, and its similarity to natural rock is evaluated based on four criteria: formation morphology, deformability characteristics, modulus ratio, and brittleness index. According to the Deere-Miller classification, the prepared rock mass sample falls under the low-strength, low-modulus-ratio (DL) category. In the present study, cylindrical cavities in isotropic and transversely isotropic rock masses (foliation angles of 0° and 90°) are considered. Furthermore, the cavity orientation is varied to investigate its influence on the failure mechanisms around the cavity. From the experimental results its observed that the failure pattern in case of horizontal and vertical cavities are V-shaped breakout and toroidal shaped failure, respectively.

Contributors

Authors

  1. Ravindra Kumar Burnwal Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India ORCID 0000-0001-8993-3496
  2. Aditya Singh Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India ORCID 0000-0003-4749-2471

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