Rheological characteristics are one of most important properties needed to be considered in the design and construction for the long-term stability and serviceability of underground structures in the rock mass. To date, although extensive studies on the rheological properties of rocks are available in the literature, most of the existing studies reported the strain-time data for the axial deformation through the compression rheological method and did not mention the lateral deformation, and mainly focused on the soft rocks at shallow depth. Thus, very limited attention has been paid to the rheological properties of deep and hard rock, neglecting the effects of structural anisotropy on the rheological properties. This paper presents a comprehensive, in-depth study of the rheological behaviors of super-deep hard rock, considering the effects of structural anisotropy by using the uniaxial and biaxial creep tests. The results revealed that significant creep behavior can be observed in the hard rock sp...
9 September 2017 in Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering