| Summary: | The convergence confinement methods are solutions employed to estimate convergence in circular tunnels. They are mostly based on constitutive equations governed by the Mohr-Coulomb and Hoek-Brown yield criteria. However, the solutions based on these criteria neglect the intermediate principal stress confining effect on the ground reaction estimation. Therefore, in this paper, a Drucker-Prager yield criterion governed solution integrated with the Lode angle parameter is employed. It considers the intermediate principal stress influence and the critical effect of the parameter on failure characterization. Subsequently, it is verified with results attained from numerical simulations which consider an elastic-perfectly plastic constitutive law with a non-associative flow rule within FLAC3D. It was drawn from the results that the ground reaction and plastic evolution are influenced by the confining stress. Furthermore, considering a suitable yield criterion leads to realistic convergence and plastic evolution estimation. The circumscribed DP criterion governed solution with Lode angle parameter value (0.8) is considered appropriate for the realistic ground reaction estimation in the three-dimensional (3D) stress state rock mass. It estimates approximately 3.4% of tunnel convergence as compared to the classic solutions (5%) and plastic radius estimated to be approximately 2.45 m compared to 2.84 m.
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