Prediction of rock burst in underground caverns based on rough set and extensible comprehensive evaluation

In high terrestrial stress regions, rock burst is a major geological disaster influencing underground engineering construction significantly. How to carry out efficient and accurate rock burst prediction is still not resolved. In this paper, a new rock burst evaluation method based on rough set theory and extension theory is proposed. In the method the following seven indexes were selected as indices to evaluate and predict rock bursts: uniaxial compressive strength, ratio of rock strength to in situ stress, ratio of rock compressive strength to tensile strength, ratio of tangential stress and rock compressive strength, elastic strain energy index, depth of tunnel, and rock integrity. According to rough set theory, those indexes influencing rock bursts were investigated through attribute reduction operation to obtain four main influential indexes and the weight coefficients of each evaluation index were acquired by analysing the significance of conditional attribute. Thereafter, the main influential indexes and its weight were taken into the extension theory to predict the practical engineering. This method was applied to a practical case, underground caverns of Jiangbian hydropower station in China’s Sichuan province. It is proved that the evaluation results of the method were well consistent with real conditions.