Enhancing rock stress understanding through numerical analysis

Numerical analysis provides a useful tool to enhance the understanding of rock stress. This paper presents several applications of numerical analysis to evaluate the influence of different factors, such as topology, excavation, loading history and geologic structure, on the state of stress in rock. The discussion focuses on the numerical technique known as the explicit, dynamic solution scheme, and describes how this scheme is well suited to simulate these factors. Recent advances with the explicit solution method are also presented, including the correlation of this method to acoustic and microseismic data to determine stress state information. Future development involves the extension of three-dimensional explicit solution models to simulate large-scale regions of a rock mass. All approach to this development is outlined. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.