Proceedings of the 7 ACM Conference on Computational Mechanics in the OF. 20th - 30th March 1999, Durham, UK. ACME *99 FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS FOR THE DESIGN OF TUNNEL SUPPORT ‘The Seventh Annual Conference of the Association for W.G.Louhenapessy ‘and G.N.Pande Department of Civil Engineering, University of Weles Swansea, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP, United Kingdom. Abstract Rock mass classification systems, such as the Q-classification system (Barton e al, 1974) and RMR system are efforts to represent rock mass properties and the rock condition as a single number. One of the major shortcomings of the Q-classification system is that it does not take into account the orientation of rock joints with respect to the exposed surface of the tunnel excavation. This paper proposes a rational methodology for the analysis and design of tunnel supports by taking into consideration the influence of the orientation of joint sets. Using the finite clement method and the multilaminate model for jointed rock 29-30 199 masses (Zienkiewicz & Pande, 1977), a set of design charts (Rose Diagrams) useful to the University of Durtam practising engineers for circular tunnels are presented. ated by Peter tess