On the stress monitoring problem for parallel gallery regions

Abstract

We consider the problem of estimating the stress–strain state in underground hard mineral mines where long parallel underground galleries are formed. There are a number of papers dealing with local causes of gallery accidents due to variations in the medium stress–strain state occurring as the minerals are withdrawn. At the same time, the authors’ theory of hidden effects shows that gallery fracture can be caused both by local actions on the defect region and by some long-range factors that can affect these defects remotely by localizing the stress–strain state in the defect region. It should be noted that the stress in the gallery region is redistributed each time a new gallery is formed or the dimensions of the existing galleries are changed. In this paper, a theory for estimating the stress-strain state in underground mines with arbitrarily many parallel galleries of various dimensions is developed.

It is shown that the stresses due to remote factors can be monitored in all gallery regions. The study is based on factorization methods, the block element method, and the topological approach.