With the decreasing of shallow resources, underground roadways of resources exploitation have reached into deep rock mass with high geostress. A series of new failure phenomena such as zonal disintegration phenomenon were discovered in deep surrounding rock, which is completely different from shallow caverns. To reveal the formation mechanism of zonal disintegration, the geomechanical model test and energy mechanism analysis of zonal disintegration were carried out respectively. Taking the deep roadway of Dingji coal mine in China’s Huainan coal mine as engineering background, a 3D geomechanical model test was carried out relying on the high stress 3D loading test system. The zonal disintegration phenomenon was observed, and the oscillation law of displacement was measured. Based on the strain gradient theory and continuum damage mechanics, the elastoplastic damage model was established. An energy failure criterion was proposed by principle of energy dissipation and release. The ODE45 function in Matlab software was used to solve the displacements and stresses of excavated model roadway. The analytical solutions the and the geomechanical model test were basically consistent. The applicability of theoretical model and energy failure criterion were confirmed to explain the mechanism of zonal disintegration and it can be used to provide theoretical support for the failure and supporting design of surrounding rock in deep underground engineering.

During the excavation of a large number of deeply buried tunnels and mining projects, rockburst disasters occur frequently due to the complex geologic environment in deep underground, including high initial geostress, adverse tectonic actions, and excavation disturbance. Many rockbursts have been found to be induced by some small‐scale structural planes in the area around the tunnels during the construction of Jinping II hydropower station. In order to study the influence mechanisms of the structural plane to rockbursts, the physical simulation tests of rockbursts under biaxial stress conditions are carried out using marble samples by considering different relative positions of the structural plane with tunnels, namely, in tunnel spandrel, in tunnel sidewall, and at the intersection with the tunnel. The digital image correlation (DIC) technique is used to trace the evolution of the deformation on the surface and the rockburst process of the marble sample. The results reveal that three types of rockbursts are identified, namely, fault‐slip rockburst, split bulking rockburst, and shear rupture rockburst, and their evolution processes are reproduced. The presence of small‐scale structural planes in the vicinity of deep tunnels could be one of the major influence factors in triggering rockbursts. The findings could provide helpful references for predicting the development process and the design of burst‐resistant measures for this type of rockbursts.