ABSTRACT
This chapter describes three-dimensional back analysis, which is based on the idea of normalised initial stress. In order to reduce the number of elements, the three-dimensional boundary element method (BEM) is used for the mathematical formulation of a computer program. The chapter presents a case study for demonstrating the applicability of the proposed back analysis program based on BEM, and it shows that the method was applied successfully to back-calculate the three-dimensional normalised initial stress, enabling the three-dimensional initial stresses and Young's modulus of a large extent of rock masses to be determined. The back analysis method is formulated by a three-dimensional boundary element method. In order to assure the computational stability of the method, a numerical simulation has been conducted, and it has been verified that the method is stable enough to provide sufficiently accurate results even for scattered input data.
