In the process of tunnel construction, gypsum rock is often encountered, and the volume of gypsum rock expands when encountering water, which is easy to cause the occurrence of rock fall, collapse, and other disasters, bringing serious challenges to the safe construction of the tunnel. Therefore, in this paper, four groups of samples under different moisture content are tested by ultrasonography, uniaxial compression, conventional triaxial compression, Brazilian splitting, X‐ray diffraction, and SEM, and then the physical and mechanical properties of gypsum rock are studied, and the conclusion is as follows: the density of the water saturated sample, and the longitudinal wave velocity of the natural sample are the highest. Both the water saturation and dehydration conditions have a weakening effect on the remolded sample of high‐strength gypsum powder. The peak intensity of the sample gradually increases with the increase of confining pressure, and the relationship between the peak intensity and confining pressure of the sample conforms to the Coulomb strength criterion. After high‐temperature dehydration, the sample showed obvious plastic softening characteristics. The cohesion and internal friction angle of the sample are closely related to the water content. The cohesion is the largest in the 45°C dehydrated sample, the internal friction angle is the smallest in the saturated sample, whereas the cohesion is the smallest and internal friction is the largest in the high‐temperature dehydrated sample. The characteristics of failure for the natural and 45°C dehydrated samples are almost the same and most samples show shear or shear‐tensile failure. The shear plane begins at the edge of the end face of the sample and exhibits a typical diagonal shear failure. The high‐temperature dehydrated samples are completely broken under uniaxial and triaxial compression conditions. After high‐strength gypsum powder was used to make the remolded sample, the calcium sulfate disappeared, the water content increased, and the main mineral components of the natural and saturated samples were the same. After dehydration at 45°C, the sample began to release structural water and generate SiO₂. After high‐temperature dehydration, the hemihydrate gypsum continued to dehydrate and become soluble anhydrous gypsum.

Due to the additional abutment stress, interactional hard roof structures (IHRS) affect the normal operation of the coal production system in underground mining. The movement of IHRS may result in security problems, such as the failure of supporting body, large deformation, and even roof caving for nearby openings. According to the physical configuration and loading conditions of IHRS in a simple two-dimensional physical model under the plane stress condition, mining-induced failure criteria were proposed and validated by the mechanical behavior of IHRS in a mechanical analysis model. The results indicate that IHRS, consisting of three interactional parts—the lower key structure, the middle soft interlayer, and the upper key structure—are governed by the additional abutment stress induced by the longwall mining working face. The fracture of the upper key structure in IHRS can be explained as follows: Due to the crushing failure, lower key structure, and middle soft interlayer yield, the action force between the upper and lower key structures vanishes, resulting in fracture of the upper key structure in IHRS. In a field case, when additional abutment stress reaches 7.37 MPa, the energy of 2.35 × 10⁵ J is generated by the fracture of the upper key structure in IHRS. Under the same geological and engineering conditions, the energy generated by IHRS is much larger than that generated by a single hard roof. The mining-induced failure criteria are successfully applied in a field case. The in-situ mechanical behavior of the openings nearby IHRS under the mining abutment stress can be clearly explained by the proposed criteria.

Severe extrusion floor heave is the most common type of failure of floors in deep roadways, and it is also a major problem restricting the safe and efficient mining of deep coal resources. In deep roadways, reducing floor stress is an effective means to control floor heave. In this study, the method of creating directional stress-relief zones by constructing stress-relief boreholes is applied; while the stress is released, the path of stress from the ribs transferred to the floor and to the extrusion failure path is cut off, and floor heave control is achieved. Therefore, based on the stress-boundary and rock-mass parameters of the roadway, the control effects of the borehole angle, length, diameter, and row spacing on the extrusion floor heave were studied, and the reasonable thresholds of borehole parameters were shown to ensure the stress-relief effect on the roadway. In addition, the bolt-grouting technology was used to strengthen the floor of the roadway, the broken surrounding rock was modified via grouting consolidation, the support strength of the floor was increased using high-tension bolts (cable), and there was a good floor heave control effect in the field application. On the basis of traditional floor reinforcement, the control effect of stress regulation on floor heave is fully considered in this study, and stress-relief–anchor-grouting, a collaborative control technology for floor heave in deep roadways, is developed. Based on the three factors affecting the stability of deep roadways (stress, lithology, and support), the collaborative prevention and control of severe extrusion floor heave were realized, which provides a new method for deep roadway floor heave control and has good application value.

The physical and mechanical properties, microstructure degradation characteristics, and damage mechanism of natural gypsum rock under 15, 30, and 45 freeze–thaw cycles were studied by using a self-developed program-controlled freeze–thaw experimental device. The results show that compared with natural gypsum, with the increase in freeze–thaw cycles, the mass of the sample increases first and then decreases, Poisson's ratio increases, the density decreases, and the longitudinal wave velocity, the uniaxial compressive strength, and the elastic modulus decrease. Indexes decrease greatly in the early stage of freeze–thaw and slowdown in the later stage. With the increase in freeze–thaw cycles, the slope of the pre-peak stage of the stress–strain curve decreases, the compaction stage is significantly prolonged, and the brittleness of the post-peak failure process decreases. Failure cracks of the specimens after freeze–thaw cycles are mainly inclined shear failure and axial tensile cracks. The analysis shows that the freeze–thaw damage of gypsum rock is caused by the superposition and mutual promotion of water-rock softening and pore frost heave. The specific performance is the damage of crystal particles and the loose pore structure at the mesoscale. On this basis, the cracks gradually develop and expand, which is consistent with the macroscopic test results of the sample. The research results have reference significance for the construction scheme design and frost damage prevention of gypsum surrounding rock tunnels in cold regions.