This paper aims to investigate the laws of large deformations of surrounding rock around a deep mining roadway. A true triaxial model experimental device is applied to simulate the strain characteristics of surrounding rock under different loading gradients based on geomechanical estimation and strata behavior test. The results show that

under shallow hydrostatic pressure conditions

surrounding rocks express a characteristic of tensile strain at shallow depth and zero strain at deep level. The tensile and compressive zonal regions alternately appear under deep hydrostatic pressure and initial excavation stress conditions. The nonlinear large strain phenomenon of surrounding rocks is observed when mining stress concentration factor is greater than 2. A comparative simulating of the displacement and distribution of plastic zonal regions in surrounding rock is conducted using the Mohr-Coulomb constitutive model and the Mohr-strain-softening constitutive model in FLAC3Dsoftware. It is found that under strain softening condition

the zonal disintegration of surrounding rock occurs due to tensile and compressive effects

and displacement after softening agrees with the observation. Based on aforementioned results

the zoning mechanism of surrounding rock induced by deeply mining are revealed. Some preliminary measures including grouting and shotcreting are suggested to control large deformation of surrounding rocks induced by immoderate strain softening.