1.

INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rock dilation
The mechanical behavior of rocks and rock masses has
been extensively investigated in the fields of civil and
mining engineering. Experimental and field observations
of rock failure show that the failure process is closely
associated with rock dilation, which is a phenomenon
associated with micro-crack initiation and propagation,
and increase in void space when the rock is loaded
beyond a certain threshold. It is important to understand
nonlinear characteristics of rocks before and after the
peak stress and subsequently test the behavior under
various loading conditions in numerical modeling with a
constitutive model for a better understanding of rock
failure process. However, it is a very challenging and
difficult task to develop a constitutive model which
represents the complete stress-strain behavior of rocks
adequately, especially for the nonlinear response such as
dilation.
Cook [1] proved that dilation during compression to
failure was a pervasive volumetric property of rocks and
not a superficial phenomenon. Dilation represents the
true volumetric behavior of rocks, and it is closely
related to the process of rock failure. Based on studies
by many researchers [2-7], the failure process of brittle
rocks can be divided into the following stages: (1) crack
closure; (2) linear elastic deformation; (3) crack
initiation; (4) stable crack growth; (5) crack coalescence
and damage; (6) unstable crack growth; (7) failure; (8)
post peak behavior. A detailed illustration of the dilation
process of rocks can be found in [8].
In continuum mechanics, the parameter most widely
used to measure dilation is the dilation angle ) ( , which
can be obtained from triaxial compression tests by
calculating plastic axial and volumetric strain increments
[9]. For a joint, the dilation angle is determined, from
direct shear tests, as the ratio of normal to tangential
displacements along a joint [10]. The physical meaning
of can be understood by considering a frictional
sliding, either along a rough joint or along particles as
shown in Fig. 1.
However, in rock engineering, when the dilation angle is
taken into consideration, especially for numerical
modeling studies, the approach by most researchers is

ARMA 10-459

A confinement and deformation dependent dilation angle model for rocks

Cai, M.
School of Engineering, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
Zhao, X.G.
Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology, Beijing, China

Copyright 2010 ARMA, American Rock Mechanics Association
This paper was prepared for presentation at the 44
th
US Rock Mechanics Symposium and 5
th
U.S.-Canada Rock Mechanics Symposium, held in
Salt Lake City, UT J une 2730, 2010.
This paper was selected for presentation at the symposium by an ARMA Technical Program Committee based on a technical and critical review of
the paper by a minimum of two technical reviewers. The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect any position of ARMA, its officers, or
members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper for commercial purposes without the written consent of ARMA
is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The
abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgement of where and by whom the paper was presented.
ABSTRACT: A mobilized dilation angle model considering the influence of both confining stress and plastic shear strain is
proposed in this paper. The model is used to predict the volumetric-axial strain relationships of a few rock samples and the results
are found to be in good agreement with experimental results. Realistic post-failure dilation behavior of rocks can be captured using
the proposed model in combination with Mohr-Coulomb strain-softening models. The model is then used to study the excavation-
induced displacement around tunnels located in different rock masses. It is illustrated from a few examples that displacement
distributions obtained from the dilation angle model are more reasonable, when compared with the general trend measured
underground.
Fig. 1. Dilation associated with sliding along a rough joint and
particles. Modified from [9].

Velocity

Velocity

often simplistic; it is generally assumed as either one of
the two constants zero in a non-associated flow rule
and the same as the friction angle in an associated flow
rule. In most popular failure criteria, such as linear
Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion and non-linear Hoek-
Brown failure criterion, the rock dilation is assumed to
remain as a constant when the rock mass is deformed.
In many numerical analysis tools [11-14], the default
value for dilation angle is often zero for all the nonlinear
constitutive models. For the strain-hardening/softening
Mohr-Coulomb model with non-associated shear flow
rules in FLAC and FLAC
3D
, the user is able to define the
dilation angle as a piecewise-linear decay function of
plastic strain. However, only limited suggestions are
given in the users manuals on how to determine plastic
strain dependent dilation angle. It is logical to have a
plastic strain dependent dilation angle, but the question
to be asked is whether plastic strain is the only
influencing factor on dilation.
In fact, a constant dilation angle is an approximation that
is clearly not physically correct. This assumption of
constant dilation is made largely because little is known
about how the dilation of a rock changes past peak load.
Some researchers [15-16] illustrate that it may be
unrealistic and misleading to use a constant dilation
angle. They also point out that dilation angle should be a
function of plastic parameters and confining stress.
Many experimental results of triaxial compression tests
on rock samples showed that rock dilation gradually
decreased with increasing confining pressure [17-19]. At
low confining pressures, brittle behavior accompanied
by volumetric dilation predominates with significant
stress-drop [20]. With the increase of confining
pressures, brittle failure characterized by axial splitting
failure gradually transfers into shear failure and is
characterized with the formation of localized shear
bands, and the deformation process is associated with a
systematic reduction in stress drop following strain
localization and reduced dilation [21].
It is observed in the field that rock failure, deformation
and associated radial dilation near the tunnel boundary
are highly dependent on confinement. Under low
confinement condition, spalling is the dominant failure
mode around underground excavations in brittle hard
rocks subjected to high stresses. Once the crack damage
stress level is exceeded [7], volumetric deformation of
the rock increases drastically. As noted by Kaiser et al.
[22], the volume increase of stress-fractured rocks near
an excavation results from three sources: (1) dilation due
to new fracture growth, (2) shear along existing fractures
or joints, and (3) dilation due to geometric
incompatibilities when blocks of broken rocks move
relative to each other as they are forced into the
excavation. It should therefore be anticipated that the
strength and dilation behavior of rocks near excavation
boundary should differ from those encountered at some
distances away from the excavation boundary. As shown
in Fig. 2, on the boundary of an unsupported tunnel,
0
3
= (the minimum principal stress) and the highest
tangential stress (the maximum principal stress,
1
) exist.
Under such a condition, maximum rock dilation may
take place if the rock fails. With the increase of
3
away
from the excavation boundary, the dilation of
surrounding rocks will decease significantly. This means
that, from the boundary of excavation to deeper grounds,
dilation decreases gradually and finally vanishes at high
confining stresses. These behaviors of rocks have been
observed especially in hard rock mines and deep civil
tunnels [23-24].

1.2. Influence of confinement on dilation
Based on the techniques of measuring volumetric strain,
developed by Crouch [26] and later modified and used
by Wawersik [27], Cipullo [28], Singh [29], and
Medhurst [30] and others, a number of experimental
studies on the behavior of rocks in triaxial compression
have shown that dilation is strongly influenced by the
magnitude of confining stress [30-32]. Fig. 3 shows
typical volumetric responses under various confining
stresses for medium-grained sandstones, and some
important characteristics can be observed from the figure.
It is observed that: (a) maximum dilation rate occurs at
the post-peak deformation stage regardless of the
magnitude of the confining stresses; (b) the onset of
dilation is delayed with increasing confining stresses; (c)
the gradient of dilation decreases with increasing
confining stresses; (d) the rate of dilation, which can be
defined as the tangent slope of a point in the volumetric-
axial strain curve, deceases when rock undergoes a
gradual transition from strength weakening to residual
strength; (e) the maximum rate of dilation takes place at

Fig. 2. Stress and rock fracturing condition near the tunnel
boundary.
x0,

y0
and
z0
are the in situ stress components
[25].
In situ stress

y0

3
=0

3
Tunnel
Induced stress and
rock fracturing state
the strain softening stage and higher confining stress
results in small rate of dilation at this stage; (f) dilation
gradually reaches to a constant value, i.e. at the end of
the deformation stage there would be no additional
volumetric strain changes; (g) dilation should be mainly
governed by both confining stress and post-peak plastic
strain of the rock.
Due to access limitation to true triaxial experimental
facilities, not enough systematic study results from
literature are available to develop a comprehensive
dilation model with the consideration of the intermediate
principal stress. Hence, the influence of the intermediate
principal stress on dilation model is not considered in
this work. Besides, some soft rocks with high-porosity
such as Ohya tuff, Yokohama siltstone [33] present
strong contractive behavior, even when a low confining
stress (1 MPa) is applied. Hence, rocks like these will
also be excluded in our analysis.
1.3. Previous study on dilation modeling
There have been a number of early attempts to develop
constitutive relations for rock dilation during
deformation. The objective has usually been to predict
the form of the stress-volumetric strain relation, or the
pressure dependency of this relation. These studies
mainly focus on micromechanical models, such as crack
sliding model [2] and physical model of crack growth
[34]. Although such idealized models have been
developed to give insight into a fundamental response of
rock, it is generally believed that the complex behavior
displayed by natural rock is beyond the reach of these
approaches [35]. Besides, some constitutive laws are
applicable to a single or a few studied rocks, and it is
difficult to represent general dilation behavior of rocks
using these models.
From laboratory data, Vemeer and de Borst [9]
concluded that for soil, rock, and concrete, the dilation
angle is at least 20 less than the friction angle. They
also deduced a formula to estimate the dilation angle, as
follows:

p
v
p
p
v

& &
&
+
=
1
2
sin (1)
where
p
v
& and
p
1
& are volumetric and axial plastic strain
increments, respectively. For > 0, an irreversible
increase of volume occurs, while for < 0, a decrease is
predicted (plastic contraction). = 0 is the special case
of plastically volume-preserving flow.
Hoek and Brown [36], based on wide engineering
experience, suggest the use of constant dilation angle
values that are dependent on rock mass quality. For very
good rock, they recommended that the dilation angle is
about 1/4 of the friction angle; for the average quality
rock, the value suggested is 1/8, and poor rock seems to
have a negligible dilation angle. Ord [37], using
numerical modeling, concluded that for most geological
materials, particularly brittle ones, it is possible that the
dilation angle may be greater than the friction angle, a
situation not normally considered in soil or rock
mechanics.
In order to characterize the changes in dilation that occur
with varying confining stress, Yuan and Harrison [35]
proposed an empirical dilation index, which was defined
as the ratio of apparent dilation angle a rock possessed at
any particular confining stress level to that under
uniaxial compression, to describe dilation behavior of
rocks. The dilation index is given by

0 1
1
0
) / arctan(
) / arctan(
p vp
p p vp p
d
I

= = (2)
where
vp
and
p 1
are the incremental plastic
volumetric strain and the incremental plastic axial strain,
respectively. Subscript 0 indicates quantities under
uniaxial compression.
(a)
(b)
Fig. 3. Volumetric-axial strain curves (b) associated with
stress-strain curves (a), and peak stress corresponding to
volumetric strain at the same axial strain level for a medium-
grained sandstone (Bursnips Road) under various confining
stresses. Modified from [32].
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
24
12
0
-12
-24
-36
-48
-60

3
=13.8MPa

3
=27.6MPa

3
=3.45MPa

3
=1.72MPa
V
o
l
u
m
e
t
r
i
c

s
t
r
a
i
n

(
m
i
l
l
i
s
t
r
a
i
n
)
Axial strain(millistrain)

3
=0.345MPa
Axial strain (millistrain)
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200

3
=13.8MPa

3
=27.6MPa

3
=3.45MPa

3
=1.72MPa
C
o
m
p
r
e
s
s
i
v
e

s
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
Axial strain(millistrain)

3
=0.345MPa
Axial strain (millistrain)
However, this idealized dilation index is based on a
linear dilation behavior, i.e., the rate of dilation is
constant at a certain confining stress level and the
volumetric dilation of rock is assumed to increase
infinitely as the rock deforms. In fact, the rate of dilation
is not constant, and it gradually decreases and eventually
reaches zero when rock undergoes a large deformation,
i.e., the volumetric dilation will vanish following large
plastic straining because rocks cannot dilate infinitely.
The phenomenon will be illustrated in the next section.
Detournay [16] also argued that the assumption of a
constant dilation angle was unrealistic. Using an
example of tunnel closure prediction employing a
variable dilation angle model, the author proposed a
tangent dilatancy factor

p
K that decays from an initial
value
p
K (a function of the friction angle) according to
an exponential function of the plastic shear strain as

+ =
/
) 1 ( 1 e K K
p p
(3)
where the parameter

can most usefully be related to

the maximum inelastic volume increase

as

2 / ) 1 ln( +

p
K
(4)
Based on plasticity dependency in the flow rule of Eq. (3)
and a detailed analysis of dilation angle calculated from
published test data including five rock types, Alejano
and Alonso [15] proposed a peak dilation angle decay
model in which the confining stress dependency was
implemented following a comparison with the trend of
the deformation behavior observed by Barton and his
colleagues [38-39] for joints, as follows:

+ =
,
/
,
) 1 ( 1
p p
e K K
peak


(5)
where
, p
is a plastic constant which should be
calculated for each rock type, and
peak
can be
expressed as

1 . 0
log
log 1
3
10
10
+ +
=

ci
ci
peak
(6)
where is peak friction angle,
ci
is the intact
unconfined compressive strength of rock, and
3
is
confining stress.
This model incorporates dependence of dilation angle on
confining stress and the plastic parameter, and it can be
implemented in numerical modeling easily. However, a
hypothesis was made in this model, i.e., once the plastic
deformation starts, the dilation angle begins to drop from
a peak value.
We have reviewed and summarized some empirical
methods and theoretical models of determining dilation,
and subsequently discussed the effect of confining stress
and plastic shear strain on rock dilation. Subsequently,
an empirical dilation angle model, which considers the
influence of both confining stress and plastic shear
strain, is developed, and the model is implemented in
FLAC to predict the volumetric-axial strain relationships
using experimental data. Finally, numerical simulations
are performed to calculate excavation-induced
displacement distribution around tunnels in different
rock types using the proposed dilation angle model. The
aim of the study is to evaluate the influence of the
mobilized dilation angles on deformation behavior
around tunnels. For comparison, simulations using
constant dilation angles are also conducted.
2. A DILATION ANGLE MODEL FOR ROCKS
2.1. A mobilized dilation angle model for intact
rocks
It is recognized that rocks and rock masses commonly
exhibit post-peak strain-softening or strength-weakening
behavior, which is described by the gradual loss of load-
bearing capacity of a rock from a peak load condition to
a residual one. A plastic parameter or softening
parameter can be introduced to account for the
process and mode of strength transition, as shown in Fig.
4. The plastic parameter is null in the elastic region, and
if 0 > , strain softening appears until the residual
strength is reached. The rate of strength drop or the slope
of the softening stage may be expressed by ( s tan ),
where s is the angle of the slope as shown in Fig. 4. If
the rate of strength drop approaches to infinity, the
perfectly brittle behavior takes place; if the rate is zero,
the perfectly plastic behavior results. It is clear that
perfectly brittle and perfectly plastic behavior models
are particular cases of the strain-softening model.
The plastic parameter can be defined in a few ways,
but so far there is no generally agreed method as pointed

Fig. 4. Strain-softening behavior of rock and its particular
cases [40].

Elastic Softening Residual
s
0 =
0 >

Perfectly brittle behavior
Perfectly plastic behavior
s tan
0 tan s

out by Alejano and Alonso [15]. Generally, there are two
ways of determining the parameter; one is defining as
a function of internal variables, and the other is based on
the incremental plastic strain. In the former case, the
most widely accepted parameter is plastic shear strain,
which is introduced into our proposed dilation angle
model and can be obtained as the difference between the
major and minor principal plastic strains:

p p
p 3 1
= = (7)
For the latter, the incremental softening parameter &
depends on plastic strain increments, and the most
commonly used expression is [9]:
) (
3
2
3 3 2 2 1 1
p p p p p p

& & & & & & & + + =

= (8)
In FLAC or FLAC
3D
, strain-softening model based on
Mohr-Coulomb model provides the incremental plastic
parameter
ps
to measure plastic shear strain and
control the evolution of the strength parameters in the
softening regime. In order to implement the dilation
angle model in FLAC, the relationship between between
the plastic shear strain in the proposed dilation angle
model and characteristic plastic parameter in strain-
softening model needs to be known. According to the
principle of non-associated flow rule in the strain-
softening models in FLAC, the relationship of the two
plastic parameters has been given by [40].
The modified triaxial compression apparatus developed
by Crouch [26] provides an effective means of
investigating the dilation behavior of rocks. Under this
important precondition, the irrecoverable strain directly
associated with the plastic strain can be obtained using
the technique developed by Elliott and Brown [41] and
the technique was later used by Medhurst to study yield
characteristics of coal samples [42]. The technique uses
loading-unloading cycles to differentiate between the
recoverable and irrecoverable components of the
observed rock behavior. The method assumes that the
rock sample has a behavior memory, i.e., if a sample is
unloaded to zero deviator stress at different stages of the
complete stress-strain curve and then reloaded, the
reloading path will follow the previous unloading path
until it comes to the initial loading point. For each test,
an irrecoverable strain locus can be created by linking all
points at intersection of the value of axial strain at zero
deviator stress and the value of volumetric strain at zero
deviatoric stress for different unloading cycles. An
illustration of constructing the irrecoverable strain locus
is shown in Fig. 5.
The irrecoverable strain locus provides a complete
relationship between plastic volumetric strain
p
v
and
plastic axial strain
p
1
, and indirectly implies the plastic
lateral strain, as follows:
2 / ) (
1 3
p p
v
p
= (9)
The dilation angles can be calculated in the course of
deformation by a method of average strain provided by
Alejano and Alonso [15]. For example, consider points
a, b, and c in Fig. 5 and the plastic strain components for
the two intervals ( ab , bc ) are given by:
2 / ) (
_ , _ , _ ,
p
b v i
p
a v i
p
ab v i
+ =
2 / ) (
_ , _ , _ ,
p
c v i
p
b v i
p
bc v i
+ = 3 , 1 = i (10)
The corresponding increment is obtained from:

p
ab v i
p
bc v i
p
ac v i _ , _ , _ ,
= & 3 , 1 = i (11)
The dilation angle can be calculated according to Eq. (1):
)
2
arcsin(
_ _ 1
_
p
ac v
p
ac
p
ac v

& &
&
+
= (12)
Fig. 5. Irrecoverable strain locus for constructing dilation
angle model under triaxial loading-unloading cycle test.
Modified from [30].

1
-

v

Irrecoverable strain locus

1
p
-
v
p
Crack damage threshold

a

b

c

(a)

(c)

(b)

Shift of the dilation angle with respect to plastic strain
Crack damage
threshold

Crack damage threshold

where
p
ac v
p
ac v
p
ac v _ _ 3 _ , 1 _
2 & & & + = . The corresponding
plastic shear strain ) (
p
can also be calculated using the
same method.
As can be seen from Fig. 5 (a-b), when the stress is
smaller than the crack damage stress,
p
3
is negative and
p
1
is very small, and a negative dilation angle can result
according to Eq. (1). When the stress is higher than the
crack damage threshold, the dilation angle first increases
at a high rate until the peak strength is reached, and then
decreases gradually. Hence, the definition of dilation in
our present study makes sense only from the crack
damage stage to the post-failure regime. As shown in Fig.
5 (c), the calculated dilation angles can be negative. For
simplicity, these negative dilation angles may be ignored,
and plastic shear strain
p
can be considered to start
from null and correspond to zero dilation; meanwhile, a
complete shift for all dilation angle data is made as can
be seen in Fig. 5 (c). In this manner, a set of estimated
dilation angles and corresponding
p
for Moura coal
specimens [44] under different confining stresses were
obtained (see Fig. 6).
Triaxial compression tests performed by other authors
on different rocks did not follow Medhursts cycle
loading-unloading method. Hence, the plastic strains
have to be calculated by subtracting the elastic strain
from the total strain according to plasticity theory:

E
v
e 3 1
1
2

= and
e p
1 1 1
= (13)

E
v
e
v
) 2 )( 2 1 (
3 1

+
= and
e
v v
p
v
= (14)
where
1
is total axial strain,
e
1
is axial elastic strain,
v
is total volumetric strain and
e
v
is elastic volumetric
strain; E and are Youngs modulus and Poissons ratio,
respectively.
Using the approach described above, the relation
between dilation angle and plastic shear strain (
p
) under
different confining stresses can be captured for other six
rock types studied in the work. For example, the dilation
angle-plastic parameter relationship of weak medium-
grained sandstone (Bursnips Road) under different
confining stresses and their best fits are shown in Fig. 7.
Obviously, the irrecoverable strain locus proposed by
Medhurst is preferred to obtain the dilation angle due to
its reasonable test procedure. Nevertheless, other data,
such as ones shown in Fig. 7, also provide very valuable
information for studying rock dilation and establishing
our empirical dilation angle model.
Fig. 6 and Fig. 7 show the variation of the dilation angle
with both plastic shear strain and confining stress for the
seven rock types investigated. It can be seen that with
increasing
p
, the dilation angle starts to increase rapidly
from a small value to its peak value, after which it
gradually deceases. A low confining stress results in a
high peak dilation angle and with increasing confining
stress, the peak dilation angle drops and the rate of
decrease becomes less when the confining stresses are
sufficiently high.
A fitting equation of plastic shear strain-dependent
dilation angle for all seven rocks under different
confining pressures can be expressed as
) /( )] exp( ) [exp( b c c b ab
p p
= (15)
where a, b, and c are fit coefficients; and
p
is the plastic
shear strain in %.
Among the coefficients, a and b show a trend of
gradually decreasing from their peak values under
unconfined or very low confining stress conditions to
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
0.2MPa(300mm)
0.2MPa(146mm)
0.4MPa(300mm)
0.8MPa(300mm)
1MPa(146mm)
3MPa(146mm)
4MPa(146mm_a)
4MPa(146mm_b)
D
i
l
a
t
i
o
n

a
n
g
l
e

(
o
)
Plastic shear strain (%)
Fig. 6. Mobilized dilation angle-plastic shear strain curves of
Moura coal under different confining stresses in cycle loading-
unloading experiments by Medhurst [42], and their best fits
(dashed lines).
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
0.345MPa
0.69MPa
1.72MPa
3.45MPa
6.9MPa
0.345MPa
0.69MPa
1.72MPa
3.45MPa
6.9MPa
D
i
l
a
t
i
o
n

a
n
g
l
e

(
o
)
Plastic shear strain (%)
(Individual fit)

Fig. 7. Mobilized dilation angle-plastic shear strain curves of
weak medium-grained sandstone (Bursnips Road) [32] under
different confining stresses and their best fits (dashed lines).
low or residual values at high confinements, whereas c
shows a trend of gradually increasing its value from very
low to high confinement conditions until an asymptotic
value is reached. Here, we apply the empirical approach
again to determine the relationships between coefficient
a , b , c and confining stress
3
. These coefficients vary
with
3
according to the following equations:
) / exp(
3 3 2 1
a a a a + = (16)
) / exp(
3 3 2 1
b b b b + = (17)

3
3 2 1
c
c c c + = (18)
where
i
a ,
i
b and
i
c ( 3 , 2 , 1 = i ) are fit coefficients (Table
1) and
3
is the confining pressure in MPa.
Table 1. Fit coefficients for confining stress dependent a, b, c
of seven rocks
a b c
a
1
a
2
a
3
b
1
b
2
b
3
c
1
c
2
(%) c
3

1 63.17 11.92 2.80 5.83 36.25 6.77 0.14 1.14 1.23
2 14.63 34.90 3.40 4.06 15.56 5.54 0.08 0.40 0.58
3 10.34 34.76 4.90 10.14 17.77 16.26 0.07 1.13 0.55
4 20.93 35.28 2.34 0.99 44.39 0.73 0.37 3.54 0.47
5 20.03 35.64 0.89 10.47 26.58 1.31 0.15 17.5 0.82
6 17.19 32.40 3.37 0.09 2.23 23.6 0.03 8.75 0.25
7 12.57 27.23 2.09 1.49 4.02 6.62 0.07 2.90 1.60
Note: 1-Witwatersrand quartzite [26]; 2-Sandstone (strong)
[31]; 3- Silty sandstone [31]; 4-Sandstone (weak) [32]; 5-
Moura coal [42]; 6-mudstone [31]; 7- Seatearth [32].
According to Eqs. (15) to (18), an overall fit for different
rocks is made to illustrate the dilation angle model
considering both plastic shear strain and confining stress
simultaneously. Fig. 8 (a-b) indicates that the results of
overall fit using the dilation angle model agree well with
the results of individual fit based on experimental data of
two rock types. When confining stress increases, a
general trend that the peak dilation angles decrease and
the locations of peak dilation angle gradually shift
towards right with more plastic shear straining, can be
observed from all models. Due to the variation of
dilation behavior with rock types, the shape of dilation
angle plastic shear strain relations are different for
different rocks, i.e., the fit coefficients in the model
differ for different rocks. Judging from the form of
curves combined with the grain description, uniaxial
compressive strength and post-peak stress-strain curve
for every rock, an empirical classification of fit
coefficients can be made to represent general dilation
angle models for four special rock types (see Fig. 9 ):
(a) Coarse-grained hard rock (e.g., quartzite). There
exists a very rapid increase of dilation angle with plastic
shear strain, and then a rapid decrease of dilation angle
post peak. This coincides with its brittle failure mode
(axial splitting failure) which is accompanied by large
dilation.
(b) Medium-grained hard rock (e.g., strong sandstone
and silty sandstone). The model behaves in a similar way
as that of coarse-grained hard rock before the peak value
dilation angle is reached. However, compared to
quartzite, the peak values are relatively small and rate of
the dilation angle decrease with plastic parameter is
small. The experimental results [31] show that there are
predominantly vertical fractures occurred at peak stress
associated with large dilation at low confinements.

(c) Fine-medium-grained soft rock (e.g., coal and weak
sandstone). At low confinements, the pre-peak behavior
of the dilation angle model is similar to the two models
shown above, i.e., the peak dilation angles are reached at
a plastic shear strain level of 2-3 millistrain. In addition,
the magnitude of the peak dilation angle is similar to that
of the medium-grained hard rock, and the post-peak
behavior of the model is similar to that of the coarse-
grained hard rock. In this rock group, all specimens
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
1MPa
0.8MPa
(model)
1MPa
(model)
Individual fit
Overall fit (model)
4MPa
3MPa
0.8MPa
0.4MPa(model)
0.4MPa
0.2MPa(model)
0.2MPa(146mm)
D
i
l
a
t
i
o
n

a
n
g
l
e

(
o
)
Plastic shear strain (%)
0.2MPa(300mm)

(a) Moura coal
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
0.345 MPa
0.69 MPa
1.72 MPa
3.45 MPa
6.9 MPa
Individual fit
Overall fit (model)
D
i
l
a
t
i
o
n

a
n
g
l
e

(
o
)
Plastic shear strain (%)

(b) Weak medium-grained sandstone (Bursnips Road)
Fig. 8. Comparison of overall fit using the dilation angle and
individual fit of seven rocks at different confining pressures.
exhibited strain-softening behavior [32, 42]. Especially
for coal, a transition from axial splitting to shearing

failure can be observed when the confinement is high.
(d) Fine-grained soft rock (e.g., mudstone and seatearth).
This model is characterized by a progressive increase of
the dilation angle, and it takes more plastic shear strains
for the peak dilation angle to be reached. After the peak
value is reached, dilation angle drops gradually in a
manner similar to that of the medium-grained hard rock.
According to the test results [31-32], the stress-strain
curves of this rock type show a transition from strain-
softening to strain-hardening when the confining stresses
are very high.
It should be pointed out that the four types of dilation
angle behavior are summarized based on limited test
data and the classification factors include uniaxial
compressive strength (UCS) and grain size only. When
more test data are available, the model parameters can be
fine-tuned to suit the dilation behavior of a particular
rock. In engineering application when test data are not
available, the model with suggested parameters in the
inserted table in Fig. 9 can be used in combination with
Eqs. (15) and (16)-(18) to approximate the plastic shear
strain and confinement dependent dilation behavior of
rocks.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
coal
sandstonefarmer
sandstoneroad
mudstone
Quartzite
seatearth
Siltysanstone
c=c
1
+c
2

c
3
3
b=b
1
+b
2
exp(-
3
/b
3
)
a=a
1
+a
2
exp(-
3
/a
3
)
Quartzite
(a) Coarse-grained hard rock
=ab[exp(-b
p
)-exp(-c
p
)]/(c-b)
(b)Medium-grained hard rock
(d) Fine-grained soft rock
(c) Fine-medium-grained soft rock
Coal
Seatearth
Mudstone
Sandstone (strong)
Silty sandstone
D
i
l
a
t
i
o
n

a
n
g
l
e

(
o
)
Plastic shear strain (%)
Coarse-grained
hard rock
Medium-grained
hard rock
Fine-medium-grained
soft rock
Fine-grained soft
rock
a1=63.17 a1=10.34~14.63 a1=20.03~20.93 a1=12.57~17.19
a2=11.92 a2=34.76~34.90 a2=35.28~35.64 a2=27.23~32.4
a3=2.8 a3=3.4~4.9 a3=0.89~2.34 a3=2.09~3.37
b1=5.83 b1=4.06~10.14 b1=0.99~10.47 b1=0.089~1.49
b2=36.25 b2=15.56~17.77 b2=26.58~44.39 b2=2.23~4.02
b3=6.77 b3=5.54~16.26 b3=0.73~1.31 b3=6.62~23.6
c1=0.14 c1=0.07~0.08 c1=0.15~0.37 c1=0.03~0.07
c2=1.14% c2=0.4%~1.13% c2=3.54%~17.5% c2=2.9%~8.75%
c3=1.23 c3=0.55~0.58 c3=0.47~0.82 c3=0.25~1.60
Sandstone(weak)
Rock type Grain UCS (MPa)
Quartzite Coarse 205
Sandstone(strong) Medium 97
Silty sandstone Medium 61
Sandstone(weak) Medium 44.18
Coal Fine 32.7
Mudstone Fine 55
Seatearth Fine 20.17
Overall fit
(model)

Fig. 9. The variation of mobilized dilation angle for different rock types at a confinement of 1 MPa. For other confining pressures,
the curves can be obtained using the parameters shown in the inserted table.

2.2. Model verification
The axisymmetric model in FLAC is used to simulate
triaxial compression tests. The axisymmetry provides an
analysis of rock deformation closely resembles the test
conditions [8]. The size of the model is chosen as half of
the intact rock sample, i.e., 73 292 mm, and the length
of every square mesh is 14.6 mm, as shown in Fig. 10.
The y-displacement at the bottom boundary is restricted
and when the model runs, and the x-displacement on the
symmetric axis is fixed automatically. Confinement
stresses parallel to the x-direction are applied to the right
boundary. A constant y-velocity is imposed on the upper
boundary, and the displacement control loading will
result in a compression stress field throughout the
specimen. The material density is 2500 kg/ m
3
and
gravity is not applied.

Fig. 10. Model mesh and boundary conditions.
V
y
S
y
m
m
e
t
r
i
c

a
x
i
s

3
y

x

0

The dilation behaviors based on the Mohr-Coulomb
model are presented in Fig. 11. The elastic parameters
are given as E =1.7 GPa and v = 0.28, and the strength
parameters are c = 3.56 MPa and = 46.9. Clearly,
under the same confinement condition for
3
= 1 MPa,
the initial slope of volumetric-axial strain relationship up
to the onset of failure for all curves are the same, but the
post-failure responses depend on the assigned dilation
angle values. Once plastic yield happens, the volumetric
strain increases linearly with the increasing dilation
angle, and the rate of volumetric strain is higher for
larger dilation angles. When a zero dilation angle is
given, the volumetric strain remains constant after
yielding, which means that there is no volumetric
dilation beyond yielding. In Fig. 11, the volumetric
strain-axial strain relations are also shown for different
confining stresses with a dilation angle of = 20. A
higher confining stress causes the onset of dilation to be
delayed due to occurring of more elastic contraction, and
the volumetric strain decreases while the rate of dilation
remain constant with increasing confinement.
A strain-softening model, with peak and residual c and
estimated from reference [42] and defined in Fig. 12,
is used in the simulation. For simplicity, the plastic shear
strain for both c and to reach their residual values is
chosen as
ps
= 0.028. This selection of material
parameter can present a typical strain-softening behavior,
and constant dilation angles are assumed in all cases.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
1
2
3
4
5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
0.83 (Residual)
3.56 (Peak)
c

(
M
P
a
)

ps
(%)
35.44
o
(Residual)
46.88
o
(Peak)

(
o
)

ps
(%)
Fig. 12. Illustration of the c and as a bilinear decay function
of plastic shear strain.
Fig. 13 illustrates the dilation behaviors for the strain-
softening models. In Fig. 13, the pre-peak linear elastic
compression is the same as that by perfectly plastic
model because the same deformation parameters are
used. However, due to strain softening from peak to
residual strengths, bilinear dilation behaviors are
exhibited. The most obvious characteristic is that the rate
of dilation at the strain softening stage is higher than that
at the residual deformation stage, even though constant
dilation angles are assumed. Hence, strain-softening of
the material can contribute to more volumetric dilation
than perfectly plastic models when the same axial
compressive deformation is experienced. The increase of
constant dilation angle can enhance the rate of dilation,
which is similar to the response of the perfectly plastic
model. With the increase of confining stress, the onset of
dilation is postponed, i.e., more compressive
deformation has to be experienced before yielding;
meanwhile, the magnitude of dilation is reduced. One
thing to be noted is that the confining stress has no effect
on the rate of dilation at both the softening and the
residual deformation stages.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
20
10
0
-10
-20
-30
-40
-50
-60

3
=1 MPa
= 20
o

5 MPa
4 MPa
3 MPa
2 MPa
1 MPa
0 MPa
10
o
15
o
20
o
25
o
0
o
V
o
l
u
m
e
t
r
i
c

s
t
r
a
i
n

(
m
i
l
l
i
s
t
r
a
i
n
)
Axial strain

(millistrain)
5
o

Fig. 13. Volumetric-axial strain curves of 146 mm diameter
rock samples with different constant dilation angle under
constant confining stress (a), subjected to different confining
stresses with constant dilation angle (b).
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
20
15
10
5
0
-5
-10
-15
-20
-25
-30
-35
-40

3
=1 MPa
= 20
o

5 MPa
4 MPa
3 MPa
2 MPa
1 MPa
0 MPa
10
o
15
o
20
o
25
o
0
o
V
o
l
u
m
e
t
r
i
c

s
t
r
a
i
n

(
m
i
l
l
i
s
t
r
a
i
n
)
Axial strain

(millistrain)
5
o

Fig. 11. Volumetric-axial strain curves of 146 mm rock
samples with different constant dilation angles under 1 MPa
confining stress, and subjected to different confining stresses
with a dilation angle of 20.
The mobilized dilation angle model for coal is utilized
here to illustrate the nonlinear volumetric response and
the dependence of dilation on confining stress and
plastic shear strain in the strain-softening model, in
which cohesion and friction angle follow bilinear
softening laws. As shown in Fig. 14 (a), there is a
remarkable difference in terms of rate of dilation change
with increasing confining stress and plastic shear strain
when compared with the results for the constant dilation
angle model shown in Fig. 13. At low confining pressure
such as 1
3
MPa, the material demonstrates relatively
higher volumetric dilation. With the increase of
confining stress, the dilation decreases drastically. The
magnitude of dilation strongly depends on confining
stress, but the rate of dilation is more sensitive to the
characteristic plastic shear strain (
ps
) than to the
confining stress (see Fig. 14 (b)). The gradual decrease
of dilation rate with increased deformation, which is
seen in the laboratory test data, can only be captured by
the proposed dilation angle model. Constant dilation
angle values based on perfectly elasto-plastic model and
strain-softening model can only predict linear increase of
volumetric strain which is physically incorrect.
In order to further verify the proposed dilation angle
model, a series of numerical experiments are performed
on Moura coal and Witwatersrand quartzite samples.
According to Hoek-Brown peak and residual strength
parameters estimated from triaxial compression tests
conducted by Medhurst [42] and Crouch [26], the
equivalent Mohr-Coulomb peak and residual strength
parameters (cohesion and friction angle) under different
confining stresses were calculated. Youngs modulus
and Poissons ratio were obtained based on test data and
all the input parameters are listed in Table 2. The size
and boundary conditions of the numerical model are the
same as shown in Fig. 10. For simplicity, cohesion and
friction angle bilinear functions using same
characteristic plastic shear strains were adopted to fit the
test results. The simulation results together with the
original test results are presented in Fig. 15.
Table 2. Parameters in the Mohr-Coulomb strain-softening
model based on test data of coal and quartzite
Rock type

3

(MPa)
E
(GPa)
v
c
p

(MPa)

p
(
o
)
c
r

(MPa)

r
(
o
)

ps
Coal 0.2 1.30 0.32 2.02 61.72 0.12 58.13 0.030

1 1.52 0.28 2.14 57.69 0.33 46.59 0.032
3 1.91 0.36 2.60 52.09 0.72 37.73 0.033
4 2.06 0.36 2.83 50.24 0.87 35.37 0.033
Quartzite 0.345 65.93 0.17 17.27 71.78 0.39 71.04 0.011

10.34 67.14 0.24 20.25 66.00 3.95 51.19 0.017
13.79 65.39 0.24 22.35 64.61 4.85 48.86 0.021
34.48 68.09 0.20 29.58 60.03 9.39 41.70 0.029
0 10 20 30 40 50
20
15
10
5
0
-5
-10
-15
-20
-25
-30
-35
-40

ps
=0.028

3
=5MPa

3
=4MPa

3
=3MPa

3
=2MPa

3
=1MPa

3
=0MPa
V
o
l
u
m
e
t
r
i
c

s
t
r
a
i
n

(
m
i
l
l
i
s
t
r
a
i
n
)
Axial strain (millistrain)
(a)
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
10
8
6
4
2
0
-2
-4
-6
-8
-10
-12
-14
-16

3
=1MPa

ps
=0.021

ps
=0.028

ps
=0.056

ps
=0.112
V
o
l
u
m
e
t
r
i
c

s
t
r
a
i
n

(
m
i
l
l
i
s
t
r
a
i
n
)
Axial strain (millistrain)
(b)
Fig. 14. Volumetric-axial strain curves of rock samples with
mobilized dilation angle model under different confining
stress (a), and subjected to variable plastic parameters under
constant confining stress
3
=1 MPa based on Mohr-Coulomb
strain-softening model in FLAC (b).
As shown in Fig. 15 (a-b), a good agreement between
numerical and experimental results for coal and quartzite
from low to high confining stress indicates that the
mobilized dilation angle model can capture the nonlinear
stress-strain and dilation behavior satisfactorily. The
failure and dilation behavior for coal and quartzite are
similar and show strongly confining stress dependent
characteristics. Compared to coal, quartzite shows more
dilation, especially at high confining stresses. The
dilation increase rates of quartzite are also higher than
that of coal. On the other hand, the behavior of coal is
more sensitive to confinement.
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
15
10
5
0
-5
-10
-15
-20
-25
-30
-35
-40
Model
Test

3
=4MPa

3
=3MPa

3
=1MPa
V
o
l
u
m
e
t
r
i
c

s
t
r
a
i
n

(
m
i
l
l
i
s
t
r
a
i
n
)
Axial strain (millistrain)

3
=0.2MPa
(a)
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
10
5
0
-5
-10
-15
-20
-25
-30
-35
-40
-45
-50
-55
Model
Test

3
=34.48MPa

3
=13.79MPa

3
=10.34MPa
V
o
l
u
m
e
t
r
i
c

s
t
r
a
i
n

(
m
i
l
l
i
s
t
r
a
i
n
)
Axial strain (millistrain)

3
=0.345MPa
(b)
Fig. 15. Actual test and simulation results of volumetric-axial
strain of Moura coal (a) and Witwatersrand quartzite samples
(b) subjected to different stresses.
3. DILATION ANGLE FOR ROCK MASSES
3.1. Peak friction angle of rock masses
Intact rock strength and deformation properties
determined from laboratory tests are seldom applicable
to field conditions due to the effect of joints contained in
rock masses. Various strength criteria have been
developed in the past to describe the behavior of rock
masses under different stress state. Of these, the linear
Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion and the generalized
Hoek-Brown failure criterion are widely used in rock
engineering. For a jointed rock, the nonlinear Hoek-
Brown criterion would be more suitable than the Mohr-
Coulomb criterion [43]. The Hoek-Brown strength
parameters can be estimated based on the GSI system,
which provides a method for rock mass peak strength
estimation. The latest version of the generalized Hoek-
Brown criterion for jointed rock masses is defined by
[44]:

3
1 3
( )
a
ci b
ci
m s

= + +
(19)
where
3
and
ci
are the minimum principal stress and
the uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) of the intact
rock, respectively.
b
m , s and a are rock mass strength
parameters which depend upon the characteristics of the
rock mass. They are determined using the GSI index and
i
m value as shown in [44]. Further quantification of the
GSI system using block volume and joint surface
condition factor for the estimation of the peak strength
and residual strength parameters are developed by Cai et
al. [45-46]. A simple method to estimate the
i
m value
from uniaxial compression test is proposed recently by
Cai [47].
The equivalent Mohr-Coulomb parameters, rock mass
cohesion ( c ) and friction angle ( ), can be obtained
based on the Hoek-Brown envelope and a chosen range
of
3
. In the
1
-
3
space, the Mohr-Coulomb failure
criterion is expressed as

1 3
2 cos 1 sin
1 sin 1 sin
c


+
= +

(20)
where
2 cos
1 sin
c

is the unconfined compressive strength
of the rock mass and
1 sin
1 sin

is the slope of the failure

envelope.
For deep tunnels, Hoek et al. [44] suggest the maximum
confining level (
max 3
) from the following equation

0.94
3max
0.47
cm
cm
H

=


(21)
where
cm
is the rock mass strength, is the unit of
weight of the rock mass, and H is the depth of the
tunnel below surface. When the horizontal stress is
higher than the vertical stress, the horizontal stress value
should be used in place of H in Eq. (21) [44].
As an example, for a hard rock mass with UCS of 100
MPa, a set of curves for the equivalent following the
variation of GSI and m
i
values are presented in Fig. 16.

3.2. Dilation angle for rock masses
When the plastic potential surface is the same as the
yield surface, the plastic flow rule is called the
associated flow (or normality) rule, which is
characterized by the convex of the yield surface and the
normality of the plastic shear strain increment vector to
the surface. The concepts of associated plastic flow were
developed for perfectly plastic and strain-hardening
materials such as metals. For materials that follow
associated flow rule, we have = . However, for most
geo-materials, the plastic flow (given by the plastic
potential) does not comply with the normality rule. Early
attempts at modeling the yield and flow of soils, by
applying associated flow rule, revealed that calculated
volumetric strains were much larger than those observed
from experiments [48-49]. Furthermore, from a
theoretical point of view, there is no energy dissipation
for when plastic deformation occurs in geo-
materials. In reality, the dissipated energy should be
non-negative for possible stress cycles of loading and
reloading, otherwise the material would produce energy
[26]. Hence, non-associated flow rules (i.e. the plastic
potential and yield surface are not identical) with <
have been widely supported and adopted to describe
cohesive frictional geo-materials in laboratory tests and
engineering practices [50-54].
It is a very challenging and difficult task to investigate
the volumetric variation characteristics of rock masses
under different confining pressures in the field. However,
based on the conclusion of < and
peak peak
at the
null confinement from theoretical analysis and
experimental observations, it is feasible to estimate the
peak dilation angle from the peak friction angle of rock
mass determined by the GSI system. In numerical tools
such as FLAC and FLAC
3D
, even though they do not
prevent the user from prescribing a dilation angle greater
than the friction angle, a recommendation that the
dilation angle should be less than the friction angle
during modeling is put forward to make the analysis
stable and avoid energy to be generated by the model
[11]. Hence, in the dilation angle model for rock mass,
an assumption of instantaneous
peak peak
= ,
experiencing a given plastic shear strain at null
confinement, can be made, and this coincides with the
suggestions given by Alejano and Alonso [15].
As discussed in Section 2, the proposed dilation angle
model is for intact rocks. For jointed rock masses, the
dilation behavior may exhibit a different behavior but in
this study we assume that the dilation behavior of jointed
rock masses follow similar trend as observed for intact
rocks so that the empirical relations established for intact
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
30
m
i
25
20
35
16
13
10
7

(
o
)
GSI
5

Fig. 16. Estimation of friction angles for GSI and m
i
values.
Note that the confinement range assumed in obtaining the
figure is from 0 to 5 MPa. Modified from Cai et al. [45].
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Dilation angles of silty sandstone
Dilation angles of sandstone (strong)
Friction angles of silty sandstone
P
e
a
k

f
r
i
c
t
i
o
n

a
n
d

d
i
l
a
t
i
o
n

a
n
g
l
e

(
o
)
Confining stress (MPa)
Friction angles of sandstone (strong)
(a)

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Dilation angles of sandstone (weak)
Dilation angles of coal
Friction angles of sandstone (weak)
P
e
a
k

f
r
i
c
t
i
o
n

a
n
d

d
i
l
a
t
i
o
n

a
n
g
l
e

(
o
)
Confining stress (MPa)
Friction angles of coal
(b)

Fig. 17. The relationships between peak dilation and friction
angles for two rock types under different confinements.
Medium-grained hard rock (a), and fine to medium-grained
soft rock (b).
rocks can be applied to jointed rock masses. All we have
to do is to estimate the peak friction angle of the rock
mass using the method shown in Section 2.1 and
take
peak peak
. Variation of with confinement and
plastic shear strain is governed by functions shown Fig.
9 for different rock types.
Fig. 17 shows the relationships between peak dilation
angles obtained from the developed dilation angle model
[8] and the friction angles calculated from the Hoek-
Brown failure criterion for two rock types under
different confining stresses. At low confinement levels
( 0
3
), the dilation angles of rocks are close to their
friction angles. However, with increasing confining
stress, this assumption is not valid anymore as a more
rapid drop of the dilation angles can be seen. It is
observed that the dilation angle is more dependent on
confining stress than on friction angle in the low
confinement range (0~3 MPa).
Parameter a in Fig. 9 plays a critical role in determining
the magnitude of peak dilation angle under different
confinement conditions, i.e., the peak dilation angle
decreases as a decreases. In order to keep the curves
shape of the dilation angle model for both intact rocks
and jointed rock masses, one can adjust the coefficient a
to ensure
peak peak


=
=0 _
3
. For example, if
max 3
is
within the range of 0 to 5 MPa, the rock mass peak
friction angle of medium-grained soft sandstone [32] is
37.5, which is estimated from the generalized Hoek-
Brown strength parameters (
ci
= 44 MPa, GSI = 50, and
i
m =10.5). Accordingly, a transformation of the dilation
angle model from rock to rock mass based on the
inserted model parameters in Fig. 18 can be made and
the result is presented in the same figure. For jointed
rock masses, no test data are available to define
complete curves of dilation angle as a function of plastic
shear strain and confinement. Here, in order to make the
problem solvable, an important assumption has been
made the dilation behavior of a rock mass resembles
that of intact rocks.
4. INFLUENCE OF ROCK DILATION ON
DISPLACEMENT AROUND UNDERGROUND
EXCAVATION
4.1. Tunnel model description
A tunnel excavation model with a radial grid is made up
of 32,400 quadrilateral elements. The cross section of
the arched tunnel is 4.9 m in width and 5.95 m in height.
The outer boundaries have been modeled at a distance of
around six tunnel widths in both directions to minimize
the boundary effect on the analysis results. The tunnel is
assumed to be constructed using the full-face excavation
method and the rock support system is ignored. The
objective of the simulation is to investigate the influence
of plastic shear strain and confinement dependent
dilation on displacement distribution around the
excavation. A close-up view of the model, and
displacement measurement lines in the right sidewall,
roof, and left arch shoulder of the tunnel are presented in
Fig. 19.
4.2. Rock mass properties
Two rock types, including medium-grained hard rock,
fine-medium-grained soft rock, are used to demonstrate
the potential applications of the proposed plastic shear
strain and confinement dependent dilation angle model
in predicting deformation distributions around tunnels.
This dilation angle model is implemented in FLAC for
use with the cohesion weakening and frictional
strengthening (CWFS) model [55] for medium-grained
hard rocks, and Mohr-Coulomb strain-softening model
for the fine-medium-grained soft rock.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
0MPa
0.5MPa
1MPa
2MPa
3MPa
4MPa
5MPa
D
i
l
a
t
i
o
n

a
n
g
l
e

(
o
)
Plastic shear strain (%)
a b c
a1=20.93 b1=0.99 c1=0.37
a2=35.28 b2=44.39 c2=3.54%
a3=2.34 b3=0.73 c3=0.47
Coefficients of dilation angle model for
medium-grained soft sandstone:
(a)
Confinement:
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
D
i
l
a
t
i
o
n

a
n
g
l
e

(
o
)
Plastic shear strain (%)
a b c
a1=10 b1=0.99 c1=0.37
a2=29 b2=44.39 c2=3.54%
a3=2.34 b3=0.73 c3=0.47
Coefficients of dilation angle model for
medium-grained soft sandstone:
(b)
0MPa
0.5MPa
1MPa
2MPa
3MPa
4MPa
5MPa
Confinement:
Fig. 18. The transformation of dilation angle model from intact
rock (a) to rock mass (b) for medium-grained soft sandstone.
In the CWFS model, the initial friction angle (
i
) is
assumed to be zero, which indicates that the strength of
hard rocks are entirely cohesive before the onset of
plastic straining. The cohesion loss envelope is set to be
slightly above the crack initiation stress envelope in the
principal stress space, as suggested by Hajiabdolmajid
[55] and Diederichs [24]. Hence, if the crack initiation
stress level for hard rocks is assumed to be 1/3
ci
, the
initial cohesions (c
i
) can be 20 MPa for medium-grained
hard rocks in our analysis. Once spalling occurs, the
strength of the broken rocks is mainly frictional and
hence the residual cohesion c
r
is set to a relative small
value for
p
c
0.2%, reflecting the small strain nature of
the problem [44], and residual friction angle
r
is set to
52 with
p
f
0.5% (see Table 3). In the strain-softening
model,
ci
, m
i
, Youngs modulus E and Poissons ratio v
of the rocks were estimated using triaxial compression
test data [32, 42]. Equivalent peak and residual Mohr-
Coulomb strength parameters (cohesion and friction
angle) of the corresponding rock masses are obtained
using the GSI system. The residual strength parameters
are obtained using a residual GSI value of 30 [46]. The
equivalent Mohr-Coulomb strength parameters are listed
in Table 4.
Table 3. Input parameters in CWFS model for medium-
grained hard rocks
E
(GPa)
v
Initial strength
criterion
Residual strength
criterion
Plastic strain

c
p
(MPa)
p
(
o
) c
r
(MPa)
r
(
o
)

p
c

p
f

21 0.22 20 0 1 52 0.002 0.005
Table 4. Equivalent parameters in Mohr-Coulomb strain-
softening model for fine-medium-grained soft rock
GSI

ci
(MPa)
m
i

E

(GPa)
v

Initial strength
criterion
Residual
strength criterion
c
p
(MPa)
p
(
o
) c
r
(MPa)
r
(
o
)
70 50 13 7 0.25 3.15 41.13 1.53 29.47
4.3. In situ stress
The in situ stress magnitudes initialized in the elements
of each model depend on two parameters, vertical stress
and horizontal stress to vertical stress ratio (K
0
). The
vertical stress is assumed to be induced by the weight of
the rock mass overlying the excavation with a density of
2500 kg/m
3
in all models. The intermediate principal
stress parallel to the opening axis is assumed equal to the
minimum principal stress in the plane strain analysis. In
order to capture rock failure and dilation occurring on
the sidewall of the tunnel, vertical stress as the
maximum principal stress and horizontal stress as
minimum principal stress are considered. On the
contrary, if K
0
> 1, the failure of rock around the
excavation often occurs at the floor and roof.
4.4. Influence of rock mass dilation on the
displacement near excavation boundary
4.4.1 Medium-grained hard rock mass
For medium-grained hard rock, such as sandstone and
silty sandstone [31], a dilation angle model is presented
in Fig. 20 (a). The maximum and minimum in-situ
stresses are 26 MPa (roughly 1000 m deep) and 13 MPa,
respectively. The angle between the maximum principal
stress direction and the vertical direction is 30. This in-
situ stress condition is used because we are focusing on
rock failure and dilation on the arch shoulder and floor
corner of the tunnel.
In Fig. 20 (b), the curve of displacement distribution
from our variable dilation angle model, which is
implemented into FLAC using the CWFS model
approach, differs significantly from displacement
distributions by the constant dilation angle model. It
again illustrates that in the failure zone, when compared
with the variable dilation angle model results, constant
dilation angle models with small dilation angles
( 2 / < ) may underestimate the displacement close to
the excavation boundary and overestimate the
displacement away from the opening when a large
dilation angle is used. When a large constant dilation
angle is used, it overestimates the displacement in all
depths significantly. People with numerical modeling
experience know intuitively that dilation angle is a
parameter that can be adjusted to get the desired
displacement amount near the tunnel surface. The
problem with a constant dilation angle model is that
when the displacement at the tunnel surface is right, the
displacement inside the rock masses may not be correct.
The rapid displacement increase captured by our
mobilized dilation angle model reflects the influence of
both plastic shear strain and confinement on rock
dilation. This type of rapid displacement change is
observed in some field monitoring data and it is seen that
constant dilation angle models cannot capture this kind
of behavior satisfactorily (see Fig. 21). The distribution
of rock dilation angles around the excavation boundary

Fig. 19. A zoomed-in arched tunnel grid showing the
displacement monitoring lines in the sidewall, roof, and left
arch shoulder.
-5.000
-3.000
-1.000
1.000
3.000
5.000
-5.000 -3.000 -1.000 1.000 3.000 5.000
y

x

is shown in Fig. 20 (c). It is seen that the confinement
and plastic deformation play a critical role in
determining the magnitude and distribution of dilation
angles around the excavation boundary.
4.4.2 Fine to medium-grained soft rock mass
Fig. 22 (a) shows the plastic shear strain and
confinement dependent dilation angle model for fine to
medium-grained soft rocks. In this rock group, strain-
softening behavior dominates [32, 42]. With increasing
confining stresses, rock samples present gradual
transition from splitting to shear failure, which leads to a
right shift of peak dilation angles following the plastic
shear strains, i.e., more plastic shear strains need to be
accumulated to reach the maximum volumetric
deformation under high confinement (see Fig. 22 (a)). In
this case, the vertical stress is assumed to be 20 MPa
(roughly 800 m deep) and K
0
= 0.5.



Fig. 20. (a) The mobilized dilation angle model for the
medium-grained hard rock (left top figure); (b) Influence of
medium-grained hard rock dilation on displacement near the
excavation (left lower figure); (c) The distribution of dilation
angle (in degree) in the rock mass.

In the strain-softening model, a large characteristic
plastic shear strain of 2.5% is assumed and it presents a
strength softening process which is characterized by the
rock mass approaching its residual strength. In Fig. 22
(b), different constitutive models including elastic model,
perfectly elasto-plastic Mohr-Coulomb model, and the
strain-softening model are used to investigate the
displacement response in the tunnel sidewall. The stain-
softening model results in the maximum displacement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
10MPa
3MPa
2MPa
1MPa
5MPa

3
=0MPa
6MPa D
i
l
a
t
i
o
n

a
n
g
l
e

(
o
)
Plastic shear strain (%)
4MPa
a b c
a1=10 b1=4.06 c1=0.08
a2=43.15 b2=15.56 c2=0.004
a3=3.5 b3=5.54 c3=0.58
Coefficients of dilation angle model for
hard medium-grained sandstone:
(a)

1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0 2.2
-2
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
(b)
Constant dilation
angles:
Mobilized dilation angle model

D
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

(
m
m
)

r/r
1
=5/8
=/2
=/4
=/8
=0

Fig. 21. Comparison of measured roof subsidence and
calculation results based on constant dilation angle model used
in three underground powerhouses (Okuyoshino, Tanbara and
Arimine in sequence) in Japan. Modified from [56].
0 5 10
0
10
20
30
Measurement
Calculation
0 5 10
0
10
20
30
Relative subsidence of ceiling rock (mm)
0 5 10 15
0
10
20
30
40
50
M
e
a
s
u
r
i
n
g

l
e
n
g
t
h

l

(
m
)

0.00E+00
8.00E+00
1.60E+01
2.40E+01
3.20E+01
4.00E+01
m_dil
30
26 MPa
13 MPa
(c)
y
x
Displacement monitoring line
on the tunnel boundary, followed by the perfectly elasto-
plastic model and the elastic model. Once plastic yield
happens, the lateral displacement in the plastic region
increases with increasing dilation angle (constant), and
the gradient of displacement also shows a trend of
increase for both perfectly elasto-plastic model and the
strain-softening model. However, compared with the
displacements obtained from the strain-softening model,
the displacements obtained from the elastic and the
perfectly elasto-plastic models are small in general. The
predicted horizontal displacement along a line in the
sidewall and the distribution of dilation angle around the
excavation are depicted in Fig. 22 (b) and Fig. 22 (c),
respectively. The displacement distribution obtained
from the mobilized dilation angle model differs from the
displacement distributions obtained from constant
dilation angle models with ranges from 0 to 3/8.
Again, our model captures the rapid displacement
increase near the excavation boundary.


Fig. 22. (a) The mobilized dilation angle model for the fine to
medium-grained soft rock (left top figure); (b) Influence of
rock dilation on displacement near the excavation (left lower
figure); (c) The distribution of dilation angle around the
excavation.
5. CONCLUSION
By analyzing and summarizing the characteristics of
rock dilation during deformation, a mobilized dilation
angle model, which considers the influence of confining
stress and plastic shear strain, is developed. According to
numerical simulation using FLAC, a constant dilation
angle using either perfectly plastic or strain-softening
model produces unrealistic dilation behavior which
cannot be supported by experimental data. On the other
hand, using the proposed dilation angle model, and in
combination with the Mohr-Coulomb strain-softening
model, realistic post-failure dilation behavior of rocks
can be captured. The simulation results for soft coal and
hard quartzite samples are found to be in good
agreement with experimental results, indicating that the
model can represent the plastic shear strain and
confinement dependent dilation behavior of rocks
correctly.
Based on the proposed dilation angle model for intact
rocks, the plastic shear strain and confinement dependent
dilation angle model for different rock mass types is
developed, and this model is used to illustrate the
importance of considering variable dilation on
simulating rock mass deformation around tunnels. It is
seen from the simulation results that the mobilized
dilation angle model can characterize rock dilation
behaviors of two different rock mass types near the
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
0.5MPa
3MPa
2MPa
1MPa
5MPa

3
=0MPa
D
i
l
a
t
i
o
n

a
n
g
l
e

(
o
)
Plastic shear strain (%)
4MPa
a b c
a1=5 b1=2 c1=0.25
a2=37.55 b2=35 c2=0.1
a3=1.5 b3=1 c3=0.65
Coefficients of dilation angle model for
fine-medium-grained soft rock:
(a)

1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0 2.2 2.4 2.6
2
0
-2
-4
-6
-8
-10
-12
-14
-16
-18
-20
-22
Strain-softening model
Elastic
model
Perfectly
elasto-plastic model
Model

X
-
d
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

(
m
m
)

r/r
1
=/2
=3/8
=/4
=/8
=0
(b)

0.00E+00
7.00E+00
1.40E+01
2.10E+01
2.80E+01
3.50E+01
m_dil
X-displacement monitoring line
y
x
(c)
excavation boundary reasonably, i.e., the generation of
large deformation near the excavation boundary is
attributed to the existence of low to zero confinements.
The displacement decreases rapidly as confinement
increases. The effective dilation angles in the model are
not constant but are rather variables depending on the
plastic shear strain experienced and confinement.
When applying the mobilized dilation angle model, one
must be aware of the limitation that pre-peak nonlinear
deformation behavior is not covered by the model
because the stain-softening model in FLAC only
presents linearly elastic behavior before peak load.
However, compared with the post-peak deformation of
rocks, the pre-peak volumetric variation is negligibly
small. Hence, a simplified pre-peak linearly elastic
behavior will not have a large influence on the overall
dilation behavior of rocks, especially at the post-peak
stage. Additional experimental data are needed to
calibrate and fine tune the dilation angle model
parameters for various rock types. In the next phase of
our research, it is planned to use the developed dilation
angle model and numerical tool to conduct a few case
studies and analyze the influence of rock mass dilation
on rock support during tunnel excavation.
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