title of the thesis - Department of Geology - Queen's University

Stress-strain relationships are useful for describing the rock mass response on the 7400 Level.
Remote to the excavation, rock is confined and considered to respond elastically to loading stress.
In proximity to the main excavation where low confinement conditions exist, the rock is expected
to behave as a plastic material when subject to continued loading. This process is nearly aseismic.
The transition from an elastic to a plastic state is determined by the material or fault constitutive
model, based on the relationship between stress, strain and the failure criteria.
Figure 4.2: The stress versus strain model for an elastic, perfectly plastic material.
4.3.2 Model Constituents and Input Parameters
The model geometry is based on the 7400 Level geometry obtained from plans provided by
Creighton Mine and consists of three parts (Fig. 4.3):
1. An excavation;
2. the rock mass surrounding the excavation; and
3. faults intersecting the rock mass.
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