Investigating the effects of lateral stress to vertical stress ratios and caverns shape on the cavern stability and sidewall displacements

Effects of lateral stress to vertical stress ratio on behavior of a cavern in various geomechanical and geometrical conditions were studied. Results indicated that the range of one to two lateral stress to vertical stress ratios was the best condition for cavern stability. The ranges causing tension and compressive failure were specified as well. Two-dimensional stability analyses were carried out by using Phase2. Key point location on the cavern side wall was investigated and determined using an equation based on a large number of numerical analyses. Subsequently, in order to predict the elasto-plastic displacement and elastic displacement on a side wall key point, two equations were fitted based on various cavern cross sections considering four basic factors, i.e., rock deformation modulus, overburden depth of caverns, heights of the caverns, and the lateral stress to vertical stress ratio. The proposed equations were utilized to predict displacement at the key points of 10 projects subsequent to which the computation results were compared to in-site measuring results and back analysis results. Finally, using key point displacement as a stability factor, the effects of three different shapes of caverns including mushroom, horse shoe, and elliptical were investigated on cavern stability. The most optimum shape was elliptical in a vast range of lateral stress to vertical stress ratios; mushroom and horse shoe shapes were preferred in uniaxial stress fields concerning the rock quality.