Rock Mech Rock Eng (2015) 48:715726

DOI 10.1007/s00603-014-0571-3

ORIGINAL PAPER

Contributions of In-Situ Stress Transient Redistribution

to Blasting Excavation Damage Zone of Deep Tunnels
Peng Yan Wen-bo Lu Ming Chen
Ying-guo Hu Chuang-bing Zhou Xin-xia Wu

Received: 10 July 2013 / Accepted: 15 March 2014 / Published online: 17 April 2014
Springer-Verlag Wien 2014

Abstract With the background of construction of the

headrace tunnels with the deepest buried depth in China at
present, by means of carefully acoustic velocity detection
and analysis of Excavation Damage Zone (EDZ), the
contributions to damage zones made by the effect of in situ
stress transient redistribution are studied and compared
with the extent of damage caused by the explosive load.
Also, the numerical simulation was adopted to verify
detecting the results. It turned out that the in situ stress
transient redistribution during blasting has great influence
on the development of EDZ of deep tunnels. The blasting
excavation-induced damage zone of deep tunnels can be
divided into the inner damage zone and the outer damage
zone from the excavation surface into surrounding rocks.
Although this damage zone dividing method is similar to
the work of Martino and Chandler (2004), the consideration of developing a mechanism of the inner damage zone,
especially the contribution of in situ stress transient redistribution, is totally different. The inner damage zone,
which accounts for 2957 % of the total damage zone, is
mainly caused by explosive load and in situ stress transient

P. Yan  W. Lu (&)  M. Chen  Y. Hu  C. Zhou

State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower
Engineering Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072,
Hubei, China
e-mail: wbluyan@qq.com
P. Yan  W. Lu  M. Chen  Y. Hu  C. Zhou
Key Laboratory of Rock Mechanics in Hydraulic Structural
Engineering Ministry of Education, Wuhan University,
Wuhan 430072, China
P. Yan  X. Wu
Key Laboratory of Geotechnical and Engineering
of Ministry of Water Resources, Yangtze River Scientific
Research Institute, Wuhan 430010, Hubei, China

adjustment, while the outer damage zone can be mostly

attributed to the static redistribution of in situ stress. Field
tests and numerical simulation indicate that the in situ
stress transient redistribution effect during blasting contributes about 1651 % to the inner damage zone in the 2#
headrace tunnel of Jinping II Hydropower Station. For
general cases, it can be concluded that the in situ stress
transient redistribution is one of the main contributors of an
excavation damage zone, and damage caused by in situ
stress transient redistribution effect may exceed the damage caused by explosion load and become the main
inducing factor for damage with the rise of in situ stress
levels.
Keywords Deep tunnel  Excavation damage zone
(EDZ)  Explosive load  Transient redistribution 
In-situ stress

1 Introduction
With the further implement of the West Development Plan
of China and the exhaustion of shallow mineral resources
at present, more and more deep transportation and mining
tunnels, or water diversion tunnels are being constructed or
planned. The increase of buried depth means higher in situ
stress and more intensive excavation disturbances. Generally speaking, the excavation disturbed zones of tunnels
could be divided into three parts from excavation boundary
to the inside surrounding rocks: the failed zone, the damaged zone and the disturbed zone, respectively (Read
2004). Obviously, the Excavation Damage Zone (EDZ)
inside surrounding rocks should be considered more carefully than the visible failed zone on the surface. The estimate of the damage extent and intensity as well as the

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study of mechanical characteristics of surrounding rocks

both have significant effects on safety evaluation and
optimization of supporting parameters in rock engineering
(Hsiung et al. 2005; Martino and Chandler 2004; Zhang
et al. 2012). For example, the length and layout of rock
bolts are directly determined by the range of EDZ. It has
been proved by a large number of engineering practices
that designing the support according to the extent of EDZ
has much more technological economy and social benefits
than that based on the traditional engineering analogy
method (Hsiung et al. 2005).
The major mechanisms related to the development of an
EDZ are: (a) excavation impact; (b) stress redistribution
after excavation; (c) back-pressure by rock supports; and
(d) swelling or slaking with groundwater reactions. The
first two are the main factors (Martino and Chandler 2004).
But under high in situ stress conditions, the excavation
impact should be redefined. The damage caused by blast
loading is obvious when the Drilling & Blasting (D&B)
method is adopted. Excepting for the explosive load, the
in situ stress transient redistribution accompanied the
blasting process may be another important component of
excavation impact under conditions of deep depth or high
in situ stress (Lu et al. 2012).
During blasting, the adjacent blast holes would connect
with each other within tens of microseconds after detonation to form a new free face driven by the blast load, and
accompanying this process, the normal in situ stress on the
new surface will release transiently, which may lead to
damage to surrounding rocks (Abuov et al. 1989). The
monitoring results during excavation of the Dong-feng
underground powerhouse carried out by Zhang et al. (1993)
indicated that the influence of blast excavation on surrounding rocks includes two main parts: the effect of the
explosive stress wave and the effect of in situ stress transient release on the excavation surface. Lu et al. (2011)
studied the mechanism of in situ stress transient release by
numerical simulation and analysis of the blast excavationinduced vibration data monitored from Pubugou Hydropower Station in China. The studies mentioned above on
the transient releasing or redistribution of in situ stress
during blasting mainly focused on the dynamic effect of
vibration or seismicity, and is rarely involved with the
excavation damage zone. However, in fact, this impaction
could not be ignored again with the increase of the excavation depth and the level of in situ stress.
The Jin-ping-II Hydropower Station (JPII) with a total
installed capacity of 4,800 MW, located at the huge bend
of the Ya-long River at the junction area of three counties
named Mu-li, Yan-yuan and Mian-ning, respectively, in
Sichuan Province of China, has the deepest hydraulic
tunnels under construction in China at present (Zhang
2007). The station was designed to concentrate water head

123

P. Yan et al.

with a group of long headrace tunnels, which were comprised of four parallel tunnels with a length of 16.7 km per
tunnel. The average buried depth of the headrace tunnels is
about 1,5002,000 m and the maximum depth reaches
2,525 m. The measured maximum principle in situ stress
along the headrace tunnel lines both reach 70 MPa under a
depth of 2,500 m (Shan and Yan 2010). The headrace
tunnels were planned to excavate with the D&B method
mainly, and the TBM (Tunnel Boring machine) method is
only adopted in some parts. Because of complicated geologic conditions and high in situ stress, the excavation
disturbances of the headrace tunnels of JPII are extremely
intensive (Tang et al. 2010). The monitored extents of EDZ
in headrace tunnels are mostly larger than 1.52.0 m and
the maximum extent may exceed 3.0 m in some large
deformation positions. This project provides a special case
to study the developing mechanism of EDZ under high
in situ stress conditions. The contributions of explosive
load and in situ stress transient redistribution to developing
of EDZ based on the deep headrace tunnels of JPII are
thoroughly studied in this paper.

2 Constitution of Damage Zone

In order to study the developing mechanism of EDZ under
high in situ stress conditions and the damage effect of
stress transient redistribution during blasting, the field
detecting results of EDZ are analyzed firstly, and then the
damage extents caused only by blast load are determined
and deducted from the intensive damage zone to get the
damage extents caused only by in situ stress transient
redistribution.
2.1 Detection Section
The cross section at stick number 15 ? 700 m in the
headrace tunnel #2 (DT2#) of JPII (shown in Fig. 1) was
chosen to be examined and studied carefully. As mentioned
above, DT2# is excavated with the D&B method, and the
lithology of surrounding rocks around this detection section
is T2y marble and the buried depth is about 1,054 m.
According to field tests by the hydraulic fracturing
method, the main characteristics of the geo-stress field
could be summarized as follows (Shan and Yan 2010):
(a)

(b)

The maximum, middle and minimum principle

stresses all increase non-linearly as depth increases
(see Fig. 1), but r1/r3 reduces as depth increases;
The azimuth angle (or trend) of maximum principle
stress is mainly within 120160, which indicates
that the direction of principle stress changes a little
as cover thickness increases.

Contributions of In-Situ Stress

717

Fig. 1 The engineering

geologic profile and in situ
stress along the tunnel line

10 m and a diameter of 76 mm, are numbered S1 to S5

clockwise from the left to the right.
2.2 Detection Method

Fig. 2 Arrangement of detecting holes in the detection section

(c)

(d)

The dip angle (or plunge) of maximum principle

stress varies from 6.45 to 75.4. This indicates that
the state of in situ stress changes from near
horizontal to near vertical self-weight stress. The
in situ stress field along the tunnel axis could be
divided into three representative geo-stress zones:
the valley stress field in the intake and outlet areas,
the gravity stress field in the middle of the tunnel and
the fault stress belt where the fault crosses or is close
to the tunnel.
Around the detection section, the middle principle
stress r2 is about 34.4 MPa and basically perpendicular to the tunnel axis with a dip angle of 25, and
the minimum principal stress r3 is 29.2 MPa in the
vertical direction with a dip of 65. So the detection
section locates in the plane of r2 and r3.

There are 5 detecting holes in the detecting section, as

shown in Fig. 2. The five detection holes, with a depth of

The detection methods of EDZ include: the contrast

detection of seismic velocity, acoustic velocity (including
P-wave and S-wave), elastic modulus and permeability rate
before and after excavation, borehole television, etc.
Among them, the acoustic velocity test method has been
widely used in engineering because of its high accuracy
and efficiency. In fact, according to the construction
specifications in China, the detecting results of EDZ with
acoustic velocity method have always been regarded as the
necessary material for the acceptance of the project owner.
So the acoustic detecting is common and daily work in
China and the detecting workload is enormous. At some
very important positions, other methods, such as borehole
television and permeability test, should be adopted in the
meantime.
In most water conservancy and hydropower projects in
China, the measurement of variation rate of P-wave (or
longitudinal wave) velocity before and after excavation,
one of the acoustic velocity detecting methods, has been
widely used and regarded as the criterion of excavation
damage, as shown in formulation (1):
g c0  c1 =c0 :

The c0 and c1 are the P-wave velocity detected before

(meaning undisturbed) and after (meaning damaged)
excavation, respectively. The P-wave detecting method
contains two forms: single borehole detecting and double
hole detecting. According to the construction specifications widely adopted in China over the past decades,
Construction Specification on Underground Excavating

123

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P. Yan et al.

Fig. 3 Field testing of acoustic velocity (P-wave) in JPII

Table 1 Detecting results of
excavation damage zone of
headrace tunnel 2#

Labels

Extent of damage zones at different positions (m)

S1

S2

S3

S4

S5

HT

Total damage zone

2.80

2.80

3.60

4.20

3.00

HI

Inner damage zone

1.60

1.40

1.40

1.50

1.30

HO

Outer damage zone

1.20

1.40

2.20

2.70

1.70

HI/HT 9 100 %

Percent of inner damage

zone to total damage zone

57 %

50 %

39 %

36 %

43 %

Fig. 4 Detecting results of

EDZ in headrace tunnel 2# of
JPII

Engineering of Hydraulic Structures (DL/T 50991999),

the disturbed rock masses, of which the P-wave velocity
is reduced by 10 %, can be regarded as being damaged

123

by excavation disturbance, and the damage intensity

would increase with the reduction rate (g) of P-wave
velocity.

Contributions of In-Situ Stress

Fig. 5 Damage zones of the detection section in headrace tunnel #2

of JPII

The single borehole P-wave velocity method was

adopted in excavation damaged zone detecting of headrace
tunnels in JPII, and the detecting device is the RS-ST01C
intelligent acoustic instrument made by Rock Sea Company, Wuhan, China. The tests were carried out along the
detecting hole with an interval of 0.2 m from bottom to top,
as shown in Fig. 3.
2.3 Detection Results
Through the P-wave velocity obtained from field detection
and by using Formula (1), the damage extents can be
determined. The results of the damage extent are given in
Table 1 and shown in Figs. 4, 5.
It can be seen from Table 1 that the extent of EDZ
varies from 2.8 to 4.2 m according to the acoustic velocity
detecting results. Although only the acoustic velocity
method was used to determine the damage extent, the
results of the 5 detecting holes can verify each other as a
whole.
The distribution of damage extent along the excavation
contour is seriously influenced by the in situ stress field. It
indicates that the in situ stress plays an important role in
the development of the excavation damage zone.
According to Fig. 4, the P-wave velocity of surrounding
rocks changes violently, and there is obviously a low
velocity zone near the excavation surface, so the excavation damaged zone of the headrace tunnels of JPII can be
divided into two secondary zones according to the variation
of acoustic velocity: the inner damage zone and the outer
damage zone. The inner damage zone features a sharp drop
of acoustic velocity of rock masses, while the outer damage
zone is characterized by a slow decline of the rock mass
acoustic velocity, and finally the level will become close to
the undisturbed rock masses. The dividing method of the
damage zone is similar to that of Martino and Chandler

719

(2004) to some extent, but the interpretation of the formation mechanism of the inner damage zone is totally
different.
According to the result of Martino and Chandler (2004),
the inner damage zone is caused by blasting load and the
outer damage zone is attributed to the redistribution of
in situ stress. But after studying the extent resulting from
blasting load only (see Sect. 3 of this paper), it can be
found that the transient unloading effect of in situ stress
during blasting is also an important factor for developing
the inner damage zone beyond blasting load. The distribution of the inner damage zone along an excavation
contour is the direct evidence. If the inner damage zone is
caused by blasting load only, the extent of it at every
location should be homogeneous provided the smooth
blasting technique is adopted, because all the contour holes
are initiated at the same moment and are loaded with the
same amount of explosive and the same charge structure
during smooth blasting.
The subordinate damage zones have been shown in
Fig. 5 and Table 1. It can be seen that the extent of the
inner damage zone is almost above 1.0 m and accounts for
4050 % of the total damage extent. The in situ stresses in
the cross section plane of DT2# are r2 and r3, and the
values are 34.4 and 29.2 MPa, respectively. Although the
two principle stresses in the detection section are very close
to each other, it can also be found that the damage extent at
the position of the right-up arch of the detection section is
much larger than that of other parts, and this area is the
stress concentration area.
According to Martino and Chandler (2004), the extent of
the inner damage zone of the TSX tunnel is less than 0.3 m
and the outer damage zone varies between 0.4 and 1 m
depending on the location around the tunnel and the measurement method. The r1 direction of TSX tunnel is parallel to the tunnel axis and the value of r1 is 60 MPa. The
r2 and r3 are 45 and 11 Mpa, respectively, in the cross
section plane of the TSX tunnel. The rock lithology of the
TSX tunnel is Lac du Bonnet granite. For comparison,
Martino and Chandler (2004) also presented the extent of
damage zones of BDA tunnel with similar geometry and
similar orientation to in situ stress of the TSX tunnel, as
shown in Fig. 6. The major principle stress (r1) at the BDA
tunnel is 26 MPa, and the r2 is 16 Mpa and r3 is 12 Mpa.
The extent of the inner damage zone of BDA tunnel is also
within 0.3 m and the outer damage depth is within 0.5 m. It
can be seen that the extent of the inner damage zone of
TSX tunnel is larger than that of the BDA tunnel and the
maximum extent of the inner damage zone along excavation contour locates in the top-right corner in the cross
section, the stress concentration area, according to the
in situ stress field. It indicates that the distribution of the
inner damage zone along the excavation contour is

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720

Fig. 6 Comparison of the extent of the inner and outer damage zones
around TSX and BDA tunnels [Martino and Chandler (2004)]

Fig. 7 The blast design diagram of headrace tunnel

evidently influenced by the in situ stress field around and

another causing factor for inner damage zone is ignored,
but this situation had not been studied thoroughly yet by
Martino and Chandler (2004).

3 Damage Induced by Explosive Load

The damage induced by explosive load only during excavation should be decided first to determine its contribution
to the inner damage zone. The numerical simulation and
field testing methods are adopted for this work.
3.1 Numerical Simulation
The 2# headrace tunnel is excavated by D&B method, and
the blast design of the upper part of the tunnel is shown in
Fig. 7.
It can be seen from Fig. 7 that the smooth blasting holes
and the breaking holes are all arranged in the shape of

123

P. Yan et al.

Fig. 8 The numerical model of blast excavation of headrace tunnel

Fig. 9 Curves of blasting load vs. time (Lu et al. 2011, revised)

semicircles or gates according to the blast design, and all

the holes located in the same layer are designed to detonate
in the same microsecond delay.
In order to estimate the range of the damage zone caused
by the explosion load more accurately, numerical simulation was carried out based on the blast process of DT 2#
15 ? 700 section. The numerical model shown in Fig. 8
includes 59,472 grids and 60,751 nodes. The simulation
strategy adopted in this paper features no grids and nodes
in the tunnel area and the explosive loads are loaded on
excavation boundaries. This method is very efficient
because it avoids the complicated simulation of the detonation process, and the simulation accuracy also meets the
requirements of damage simulation (Lu et al. 2011).
During the blasting excavation process, the explosive
energy of cut holes and breaking holes are mainly used to
crush rock masses excavated, and the damage of reserved
rock masses (or surrounding rocks) is mainly produced by
the contour blasting. To simplify the simulation, only the

Contributions of In-Situ Stress

Table 2 Parameters of rock
mass of the detection section
adopted in simulation

Table 3 Extent of damage

zone induced by explosive load
only

721

Elastic
modulus
(GPa)

Density
(kg m-3)

Poissons
ratio

Uniaxial
compressive stress
(MPa)

Tangent
modulus
(GPa)

Parameter
C

Parameter
P

15.0

2650

0.22

70.0

8.0

40

2.2

Labels

Hb

Extent of damage zones at different

positions (m)

Simulated extent of damage zone induced only by

explosive load (blast load induced damage zone)

S1

S2

S3

S4

S5

0.78

0.81

0.79

0.85

0.78

HI

Detected extent of inner damage zone

1.60

1.40

1.40

1.20

1.30

Hb/HI 9
100 %

Percent of blast load induced damage zone in inner

damage zone

49 %

58 %

56 %

71 %

60 %

damage effect caused by the smooth blasting is considered

during simulation. The explosion load used in simulation is
shown in Fig. 9. The Pb0 is the peak of explosion load in
the diagram, tr is the rising time of explosion load, and td is
the duration of explosion load.
During the excavation of headrace tunnel of JPII, the
diameter of smooth blasting charge is 25 mm, the explosive
density is 1.1 g/cm3, and the explosive detonation velocity is
4,000 m/s. From the study of Lu et al. (2011), it can be calculated that the peak of explosion load Pb0 acting on the wall
of blast holes is 122.3 MPa, and the duration td  8.0 ms.
To avoid the influence of in situ stress on the excavation
damage zone, only the blasting load shown in Fig. 9 is
loaded on the inner boundary of the numerical model. The
constitutive relation of rock masses adopted in simulation
is the plastic follow-up model, and the influence of strain
rate on rock strength is considered in the Cowper-Symonds
model LSTC (Miklowitz 1960, LSTC 2003). The physical
and mechanical parameters of rock masses of the detection
section is shown in Table 2, and the strain rate parameter C
and P are obtained through numerical matching of the rule
of material dynamic strength vs. strain rate.
The simulation results of the damage zone caused only
by the blasting load are shown in Table 3. The damage
zone caused only by explosive load during excavation of
the 2# headrace tunnel of JPII is only about 0.8 m. The
calculated result needs to be verified by field tests.
3.2 Field Verification
In order to measure the damage extent resulting only from
blasting load and reducing the effect of in situ stress to the
minimum level, the shallow part of DT2# from tunnel
length 100800 m was chosen. The selected part of DT2#
is totally in T2Z strata, and the lithology of surrounding
rocks is the Zagunao group marble with average uniaxial

(a) In situ stress versus tunnel length

(b) Measured extents of damage zone

Fig. 10 In situ stresses and measured damage zone extent

compressive strength of about 85 MPa. The levels of in situ

stresses are shown in Fig. 7. As mentioned above, the
direction of the maximum principle stress r1 is basically
parallel to the tunnel axis with a small dip angle, and the
middle principle stress r2 and the minimum principle stress
r3 are both in the cross section plane of the tunnel. The
direction of r3 is nearly vertical.
The damage detecting holes are arranged in the side
walls of DT2# at a height of 1.5 m from tunnel bottom, and
the results of the extent of EDZ is shown in Fig. 10.
It can be seen from Fig. 10 that the damage zones
increase with the buried depth as a whole. With the tunnel

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P. Yan et al.

during blasting excavation may be the answer. Certainly, the

effect may also influence the development of the inner damage zone, but it needs to be verified by more monitoring data.

4 Damage Caused by Stress Transient Redistribution

4.1 Damage Mechanism of Stress Transient
Redistribution

Fig. 11 The excavation damaged zone of section DT2# 15 ? 700

length from 100 to 800 m, the maximum principle stress r1

paralleled to the tunnel axis is within 1025 MPa, and the
r2 and the r3 in the tunnel cross section are both less than
10 MPa. While, after stick number 0 ? 800, the value of
in situ stresses in the tunnel cross section increases quickly
to 1025 MPa.
It can also be found that the extents of damage zones of
the DT2# with tunnel length between 100 and 800 m are
almost \1.0 m, but after 0 ? 800, the extents of damage
zone increase significantly. It clearly indicates that the
value of the in situ stress exerts an important influence on
the excavation damaged zone.
Because the values of in situ stresses are low and the
maximum principle stress is parallel to the tunnel axis, the
excavation damaged zone with tunnel length from 100 to
800 m is considered to be caused only by the blast load,
and the range of the damage zone extent is about 0.50.8 m
excepting three detecting extents over 1.5 m.
It can be seen that the measured results agree with the
simulated results very well. The results prove that the
simulation is reliable.
3.3 Constitution of the Inner Damage Zone
The damage zone caused only by blast load and the inner
and outer damage zones of section DT2# 15 ? 700 are all
given in Fig. 11 and Table 3.
The result indicates that the inner damage zone induced
by the D&B excavation process is not completely caused
by explosion load. The extent of the damage zone caused
by explosion load accounts for only 4971 % of the inner
damage zone (shown in Table 3), with an average of 59 %.
Therefore, there is obviously another load contributing to
the development of the inner damage zone. This conclusion
is totally different from the result of Martino and Chandler
(2005).
From the above analyses, the transient redistribution of
in situ stress accompanying rock fragmentation process

123

In Miklowitz (1960), studied the dynamic redistribution of

the circumferential stress rh (r, t) induced by the process of
quickly punching (takes about 2.5 ls) a round hole in the
middle of a tight tension circle plate using Laplace transform method, as shown in Fig. 12a. The result indicates
that the tangential stress wave is induced by the fast
unloading of the normal stress on the hole wall during the
process of punching. Compared with the static redistribution tangential stress, the induced dynamic tangential stress
on the wave front is obviously larger. The dynamic process
can be considered as one of the important inducements
leading to generation and expansion of micro-cracks
around the hole punched.
In the process of excavation of a deep buried tunnel with
the excavation D&B method, the cracks preferentially
expand in the blast holes connection direction, and the
adjacent blast holes interpenetrate with each other in a very
short time (about several ms), then the rock fragments are
thrown out quickly to form a new excavation face. The
normal constraint between the excavated rock mass and the
reserved rock mass will instantly disappear, and the in situ
stress on excavation face releases transiently in the meantime. This process will arouse transient unloading stress
wave in surrounding rocks, just like the results given in
Fig. 12b. The transient unloading stress wave has been
proved to be one of the factors for generation and expansion of cracks, which finally results in damage to the surrounding rocks (Lu et al. 2011, 2012; Miklowitz 1960).
4.2 Excavation Loads Induced by Transient
Redistribution
In order to study the damage extents caused by in situ stress
transient redistribution during blasting process quantitatively, the numerical simulation based on the calculation
model shown in Fig. 8 has been conducted.
First of all, the transient redistribution path and time of
in situ stress on the excavation face need to be determined
during blasting. According to the stress continuity conditions on excavation boundary, only when the cracks around
the blast hole and between adjacent blast holes completely
interconnected with each other and the pressure on the
excavation contour Pb0 decays to a level equaling the

Contributions of In-Situ Stress

723

Fig. 12 The stress wave induced by quickly punching a hole in a circle plate in tension (Miklowitz 1960)

Fig. 13 Curves of blasting load and transient release of in situ stress

vs. time (Lu et al. 2011)

in situ stress of surrounding rock mass ri, the release of

in situ stress begins, as shown in Fig. 13. The ti is the start
time of in situ stress unloading. When the Pb reduces to the
atmosphere, the release of in situ stress completes (Lu et al.
2011). The start and stop time and variation law of in situ
stress transient releasing coupled with explosion load
during blasting are determined by the stress level on the

newly formed excavation face and variation process of the

blast load. The detailed calculation process can be found in
the work done by Lu et al. (2012).
During the blast excavation of headrace tunnels of JPII,
the short-hole blasting scheme is always adopted. The
diameter and depth of boreholes are 42 mm and 1.55.0 m,
respectively, and the spacing between adjacent smooth
blasting holes is 0.81.2 m. The 2# rock emulsion explosive
with a detonation velocity of 3,5004,500 m/s is adopted.
The buried depth of the 2# headrace tunnel at stick
number 15 ? 700 m is about 1,054 m. As mentioned
above, the in situ stresses in the cross section plane of
DT2# are 34.4 and 29.2 MPa, respectively (see Figs. 5,
11). It can be estimated from the research of Lu et al.
(2012) that the in situ stress releasing time during blasting
excavation of headrace tunnels of JPII is 25 ms. This
estimated value is consistent with the field high-speed
photography material of rock blasting (Felice et al. 1993).
During this transient process, a large amount of elastic
strain energy would release in several milliseconds with a
high speed accompanying transient releasing of stress,
which will arouse significant transient unloading stress
wave in the surrounding rock masses, and cause damage to
surrounding rocks.

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P. Yan et al.

Fig. 14 Damage zone schema

after blast-excavation of upside
part

Table 4 The simulation results

of the extent of damage zones
caused by blast excavation of
the upside part of the headrace
tunnel

Labels

Extent of damage zones at

different positions (m)
S2

S3

S4

S5

HS

Damage extent induced by quasi static

redistribution of in situ stress

2.72

1.65

1.55

1.85

1.41

HBS

Damage extent induced by coupling effect of

explosive load and static redistribution of
in situ stress

3.17

2.62

2.50

2.89

2.57

HBT

Damage extent induced by coupling effect of

explosive load and transient redistribution of
in situ stress means in the simulated total
damage zone

3.63

2.80

3.90

4.09

3.20

HB = HBS-HS

HBS subtracts HS, equals the damage extent

caused by blasting load, HB

0.45

0.97

0.95

1.04

1.16

HTR = HBT-HBS

HBT subtracts HBS, equals the damage extent

caused by in situ stress transient unloading,
HTR

0.46

0.18

1.40

1.20

0.63

HI = HBT-HS

HBT subtracts HS, equals the damage extent

caused by coupling effect of blast load and
in situ stress transient redistribution, the
simulated inner damage zone, HI

0.91

1.15

2.35

2.24

1.79

HB/HI 9 100 %

Percent of blast load induced damage zone in

inner damage zone

49 %

84 %

40 %

46 %

65 %

4.3 Numerical Simulation and Discussion

There are three kinds of calculation conditions which are
simulated as follows: (1) the extent of damage zone induced
only by the quasi static redistribution of the in situ stress after
tunnel excavation; (2) the damage zone caused by the coupling effect of explosion load and static redistribution of
in situ stress and (3) the damage zone caused by the explosion
load coupling with transient unloading of in situ stress. The
simulation results are shown in Fig. 14, and the specific
damage zone data are listed in Table 4.

123

S1

It can be seen from Fig. 14 that, the extent of

damage zone and its distribution along the excavation
boundary are strongly influenced by the in situ stress
field. The simulation results given in line HBT of
Table 4 mean that the extents of the total damage zone,
which is caused by the coupling effect of explosive
load and transient redistribution of in situ stress, are
very close to the monitoring results given in Table 1
excepting the position of S1. It indicates that the results
of numerical simulation are reliable. So the simulation
results can be used to study and compare the damage

Contributions of In-Situ Stress

extent induced by explosive load and in situ stress

transient redistribution.
Comparing line HBS with line HS, it can be found that
the blast load makes the extent of damage zone increase by
nearly 1.0 m (except for the 0.45 m monitored form
detecting hole S1), and the distribution of increased extent
along the excavation boundary is nearly uniform. The
fourth line of Table 4 marked by HB means damage caused
by the blast load alone, and the results are slightly larger
than the monitoring result 0.780.85 m, as given in
Table 3. The reason for the difference may be the coupling
effect of blast load and redistributed stress.
The fifth line of Table 4 marked by HTR means damage
induced only by in situ stress transient unloading or transient redistribution, while the sixth line of Table 4 marked
by HI means damage caused by the coupling effect of the
blast load and in situ stress transient adjustment, which can
be regarded as the inner damage zone in field results. It can
also be concluded from the numerical simulation results
that the inner damage zone is constituted by a damage zone
caused by blast load and the one induced by transient
unloading of in situ stress.
The seventh line of Table 4 marked by HB/HI means that
the sixth line is divided by the fourth line, which equals the
rate of damage extent caused only by the blast load in the
inner damage zone acquired from the numerical simulation.
The results shown in the seventh line are very close to the
monitoring results shown in Table 1. Thus, the explosive
load almost contributes 4984 % to the inner damage zone,
while the transient adjustment of in situ stress accounts for
the remaining 1651 % of the inner damage zone.
The results mentioned above indicate that the damage
zone caused by transient unloading of in situ stress is one
of the main components of the excavation-induced damage
zone, and the distribution of the transient unloading
induced damage zone is intensively influenced by the
redistributed stress field. Therefore, in situ stress transient
unloading inducing rock damage cannot be ignored, and it
should be studied as a surrounding rock damage factor
equaling explosive loads. It is also worth mentioning that
the measuring and simulation results given in this paper are
obtained based on the in situ stress level at 2935 Mpa, and
the damage effect of in situ stress transient unloading is
expected to be more intensive under much higher stress
conditions.

5 Conclusion
The conclusions are as follows:
1.

Due to the coupling effect of the high level in situ

stress and the excavation action, the blasting

725

2.

3.

excavation induced damage zone of deep tunnels can

be divided into the inner damage zone and the outer
damage zone from excavation surface into surrounding
rocks.
The inner damage zone of deep tunnels excavated by
the D&B method is mainly caused by the explosive
load and in situ stress transient redistribution, while the
outer damage zone is mostly attributed to the static
redistribution of in situ stress. The inner damage zone
accounts for 2957 % of the total damage zone extent.
Field tests and numerical simulation indicate that the
in situ stress transient unloading effect accompanying
the blasting process contributes about 1651 % to the
inner damage zone of deep tunnels and the in situ
stress transient adjustment/redistribution is one of the
main contributors, and the damage caused by in situ
stress transient adjustment effect may exceed the one
caused by the explosion load and become the main
cause for damage.

Acknowledgments This work is supported by the Chinese National

Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (No. 51125037), the
Chinese National Natural Science Foundation (Nos. 51179138,
51279135, 51279146 and 51009013). The authors sincerely express
their thanks to all the supporters.

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