Determination of Equivalent Mohr-Coulomb Criterion from Generalised Hoek-Brown Criterion
Abstract A new analytical solution is presented for determining equivalent Mohr-Coulomb (MC) shear strength parameters over an arbitrary interval of minor principal stress σ3 from the generalised Hoek-Brown (HB) criterion using least squares method. Comparison with several published examples demonstrates that the proposed solution had a capacity to accurately determine equivalent MC parameters over a given interval of σ3, as well as instantaneous MC parameters by using a very small interval of σ3. EMC parameters depended heavily on the interval of σ3, which highlighted the importance of intervals of σ3. A calculation case shows that the equivalent internal friction angle and cohesion over the interval of σ3 from tension cut-off σcut−off to maximum minor principal stress σ3max were approximately 12% smaller and 10.3% larger than those over an interval from tensile strength to σ3max, respectively. The proposed solution offers great flexibility for the application of the HB criterion with existing methods based on the MC criterion for rock engineering practice.