Abstract
The authors proposed an evaluating method in terms of the external work done to rock masses and the energy dissipated within rock masses, and showed the effectiveness of the method to evaluate the stability of rock masses without supports. This paper extended this method to be able to evaluate the stability of rock masses under the influence of internal pressure or rock volts. By the parametric model for the mechanical characteristics derived from shearing test data on rocks, the stability evaluation of soft rocks around tunnels under the inner pressure and the influence of the timing of support settings on the stability of rock masses were discussed.
