The state of roof collapse in tunnels is actually three-dimensional, so constructing a three-dimensional failure collapse mechanism is crucial so as to reflect the realistic collapsing scopes more reasonably. According to Hoek-Brown failure criterion and the upper bound theorem of limit analysis, the solution for describing the shape of roof collapse in circular or rectangular tunnels subjected to seepage forces is derived by virtue of variational calculation. The seepage forces calculated from the gradient of excess pore pressure distribution are taken as external loading in the limit analysis, and it is of great convenience to compute the pore pressure with pore pressure coefficient. Consequently, the effect of seepage forces is taken as a work rate of external force and incorporated into the upper bound limit analysis. The numerical results of collapse dimensions with different rock parameters show great validity and agreement by comparing with the results of that with two-dimensional failure mechanism. The state of roof collapse in tunnels is actually three-dimensional, so constructing a three-dimensional failure collapse mechanism is crucial so as to reflect the realistic collapsing scopes more reasonably. According to Hoek-Brown failure criterion and the upper bound theorem of limit analysis , the solution for describing the shape of roof collapse in circular or rectangular tunnels subjected to seepage forces is derived by virtue of variational calculation. The seepage forces calculated from the gradient of excess pore pressure distribution are taken as external loading in the limit analysis, and it is of great convenience to compute the pore pressure with pore pressure coefficient. The numerical results of seepage forces are taken as a work rate of external force and incorporated into the upper bound limit analysis. The numerical results of collapse dimensions with different rock parameters show great validity and agreement by comparing with the results of that with two-dimension al failure mechanism.