Recently, Deformation and Failure Mechanism and Analysis Method of Large-scale Caverns Influenced by Disturbed Belt, the program proposed by researcher FENG Xiating from IRSM wins support from Key Program of National Natural Science Fund with 3000,000 yuan financial aid.

With the development of west area and launch of major national construction projects, more than ten 1000,000 KW hydropower stations are to be established in China. As around 70% of the hydropower stations are located at deep gorges in the west area, more underground caverns will be influenced by disturbed belt. According to the general statistics, there are dozens of dams constructed above disturbed belt, about 30 dams were forced to change their design, reduce dam height, increase engineering quantity, and strengthen the dam after it is completed. Disturbed belt brings serious threat to the safety of engineering structure. The project aims to reveal the deformation and failure mechanism of large-scale caverns under disturbed belt by doing systematic indoor test, comprehensive field observation, theoretical analysis, numerical stimulation and engineering application verification. On the one hand, the research is expected to establish the mechanical model of deformation and failure mechanism of disturbed belt, hard parent rock and their contact surface; on the other hand, the project will put forward cellular automata stimulation method to stimulate the  non-compatible deformation and failure mechanism of disturbed belt and parent rocks under high geostress, and establish dynamic evaluation method of large-scale caverns safety influenced by disturbed belt under high geostress.