Elastic–brittle–plastic analysis of circular openings in Hoek–Brown media

A closed-form solution is presented in this paper for the prediction of displacements around circular openings in a brittle rock mass subject to a hydrostatic stress field. The rock mass is assumed to be governed by Hoek–Brown yield criterion and a non-associated flow rule is used. For the elastic–brittle–plastic analysis of circular openings in an infinite Hoek–Brown medium, the existing analytical solutions were found to be incorrect. The present closed-form solution is based on a theoretically consistent method and the solution does not require the use of any numerical method.The present closed-form solution was validated by using the finite element method. In the finite element analysis, the infinite boundary was simulated “exactly” by using the newly developed elastic support method. Several cases were analyzed and the present closed-form solutions for stresses and displacements were found to be in an excellent agreement with those obtained by using the finite element method.