Mechanical behaviour of fiber-reinforced grout in rock bolt reinforcement

Grouted rock bolts subject to axial loading in the field exhibit various failure modes,among which the most predominant one is the bolt-grout interface failure.Thus,mechanical characterization of the grout is essential for understanding its performance in ground support.To date,few studies have been conducted to characterize the mechanical behaviour of fiber-reinforced grout(FRG)in rock bolt reinforcement.Here we experimentally studied the mechanical behaviour of FRG under uniaxial compression,indirect tension,and direct shear loading conditions.We also conducted a series of pullout tests of rebar bolt encapsulated with different grouts including conventional cementitious grout and FRG.FRG was developed using 15%silica fume(SF)replacement of cement(by weight)and steel fiber to achieve highstrength and crack-resistance to overcome drawbacks of the conventional grout.Two types of steel fibers including straight and wavy steel fibers were further added to enhance the grout quality.The effect of fiber shape and fiber volume proportion on the grout mechanical properties were examined.Our experimental results showed that the addition of SF and steel fiber by 1.5%fiber volume proportion could lead to the highest compressive,tensile,and shear strengths of the grout.The minimum volume of fiber that could improve the mechanical properties of grout was found at 0.5%.The scanning electron microscopy(SEM)analysis demonstrated that steel fibers act as an excellent bridge to prevent the cracks from propagating at the interfacial region and hence to aid in maintaining the integrity of the cementitious grout.Our laboratory pullout tests further confirmed that FRG could prevent the cylindrical grout annulus from radial crack and hence improve the rebar’s load carrying capacity.Therefore,FRG has a potential to be utilized in civil and mining applications where high-strength and crack-resistance support is required.

Application Strategies of Shotcrete Anchor Support Technology in Highway Bridge and Tunnel Engineering

This article analyzes the application strategies of shotcrete anchor support technology using a highway bridge-tunnel construction project as an example.The article covers various strategies,including support plan formulation,mortar shotcrete anchor construction,grid steel frame construction,steel mesh construction,and concrete support construction.This analysis aims to provide a guideline for those interested in applying this technology and improving the quality and safety of highway bridges and tunnels construction.

Comprehensive utilization of solid waste resources: Development of wet shotcrete for mines

The development of solid waste resources as constituent materials for wet shotcrete has significant economic and environmental advantages. In this study, the concept of using tailings as aggregate and fly ash and slag powder as auxiliary cementitious material is proposed and experiments are carried out by response surface methodology(RSM). Multivariate nonlinear response models are constructed to investigate the effect of factors on the uniaxial compressive strength(UCS) of tailings wet shotcrete(TWSC). The UCS of TWSC is predicted and optimized by constructing Gaussian process regression(GPR) and genetic algorithm(GA). The UCS of TWSC is gradually enhanced with the increase of slag powder dosage and fineness modulus, and it is enhanced first and then decreased with the increase of fly ash dosage. The microstructure of TWSC has the highest gray value and the highest UCS when the fly ash dosage is about 120 kg·m^(-3). The GPR–GA model constructed in this study achieves high accuracy prediction and optimization of the UCS of TWSC under multi-factor conditions.

Experimental study of polyurea-coated fiber-reinforced cement boards under gas explosions

Five types of polyurea elastomers were synthesized by changing the isocyanate component and the mechanical properties of polyurea materials were measured. Fiber-reinforced cement boards(FRCB)strengthened by polyurea with different formulations were processed, and a series of experiments were carried out on the specimens with gas explosion devices. The results showed that the conventional mechanical properties of different types of polyureas had their own advantages. Based on the gas explosion overpressure criterion, the blast resistances of reinforced plates were quantitatively evaluated,and the best polyurea was selected to guide the formulation design. The three typical failure modes of polyurea-reinforced FRCBs were flexural, shear, and flexural-shear failure. Dynamic thermodynamics and shock wave spectral analysis revealed that the polyurea did not undergo a glass transition in the gas explosion tests but retained its elastic properties, allowing it to effectively wrap the fragments formed by the brittle substrates.

Development of Wet Shotcrete with Solid Waste as Aggregate:Strength Optimization and Mix Proportion Design

The super-fine particle size of tailings is its drawback as a recycled resource,which is reflected in the low strength of the new construction and industrial materials formed when it is mixed with cement and other cementitious materials.Therefore,it is crucial to study the effect of tailings particle size and cementitious material on the strength of tailings wet shotcrete(TWSC)and to investigate the optimal mix proportion.In this paper,a multivariate nonlinear response model was constructed by conducting central composite experiments to investigate the effect of different factors on the strength of TWSC.The strength prediction and mix proportion optimization of TWSC are carried out by machine learning techniques.The results show that the response model has R^(2)>0.94 and P<0.01,which indicates that the model has high reliability.Moreover,the strength of TWSC increases with the increase of tailings fineness modulus and decrease of water-binder ratio,while it also increases and then decreases with the increase of replacement rate of slag powder to cement(SRC rate).The extreme learning machine(ELM)constructed in this paper predicts the strength of TWSC with an accuracy of more than 98%and achieves rapid prediction under multi-factor conditions.It is worth mentioning that the ELM combined with the genetic algorithm(ELM-GA)collaboratively solved to obtain the mix proportion for C15 and C20 strength grades of TWSC and the maximum error is verified by experiments to be less than 2%.

Study on Mechanical Properties of High Fine Silty Basalt Fiber Shotcrete Based on Orthogonal Design

In order to improve the comprehensive utilization rate of highfines sand(HFS)produced by the mine,full solid waste shotcrete(HFS-BFRS)was prepared with HFS asfine aggregate in cooperation with basaltfiber(BF).The strength growth characteristics of HFS-BFRS were analyzed.And thefitting equation of compressive strength growth characteristics of HFS-BFRS under the synergistic effect of multiple factors was given.And based on the orthogonal experimental method,the effects on the compressive strength,splitting tensile strength andflex-ural strength of HFS-BFRS under the action of different levels of influencing factors were investigated.The effect of three factors on the mechanical properties of HFS-BFRS,3,and 28 d,respectively,was revealed by choosing the colloidal sand ratio(C/H),basaltfiber volume fraction(BF Vol)and naphthalene high-efficiency water reducing agent(FDN)as the design variables,combined with indoor tests and theoretical analysis.The results show that the sensitivity of the three factors on compressive strength andflexural strength is C/H>FDN>BF Vol,and split-ting tensile strength is BF Vol>FDN>C/H.Finally,thefitting ratio of HFS-BFRS was optimized by the factor index method,and the rationality was verified by thefield test.For thefluidity of HFS-BFRS,the slump can be improved by 139%under the action of 1.2%FDN,which guarantees the pump-ability of HFS-BFRS.

Mechanism of wet shotcrete interacting with rock in support systems

In order to have a good understanding of the behavior of wet shotcrete as a support element interacting with the rock mass,mechanism of wet shotcrete interacting with rock in support systems was analyzed through theoretical,numerical study and analytical analysis.A new model of distribution of rock stress state after wet shotcrete was applied,which includes shotcrete layer,composite layer,strengthening layer,plastic layer and elastic layer,and a full illustration of the rock mass stress state was given after shotcrete interacting with rock mass.At the same time,numerical analysis with FLAC gives a stress distribution along the monitor line,respectively,at the sidewall and roof of the tunnel.The displacement obviously decreases with the depth of rock,the tangential stress for tunnel supported by shotcrete is lower than that without shotcrete,and radial stress for tunnel supported by shotcrete is higher than that without shotcrete.It has been demonstrated by AIRY'S stress function,which gives a reasonable solution.Finally,the application of wet shotcrete in Jinfeng Gold Mine shows that the displacement of tunnel decreases obviously in sidewall and roof.

Effects of fibers on expansive shotcrete mixtures consisting of calcium sulfoaluminate cement,ordinary Portland cement,and calcium sulfate

The mining industry often uses shotcrete for ground stabilization. However, cracking within shotcrete is commonly observed, which delays production schedules and increases maintenance costs. A possible crack reduction method is using expansive shotcrete mixture consisting of calcium sulfoaluminate cement(CSA), ordinary Portland cement(OPC), and calcium sulfate(CS) to reduce shrinkage. Furthermore, fibers can be added to the mixture to restrain expansion and impede cracking. The objective of this paper is to study the effects of nylon fiber, glass fiber, and steel fiber on an expansive shotcrete mixture that can better resist cracking. In this study, parameters such as density, water absorption, volume of permeable voids, unconfined compressive strength(UCS), splitting tensile strength(STS), and volume change of fiber-added expansive mixtures were determined at different time periods(i.e. the strengths on the 28 th day, and the volume changes on the 1 st, 7 th, 14 th, 21 st, and 28 th days). The results show that addition of fibers can improve mixture durability, in the form of decreased water absorption and reduced permeable pore space content. Moreover, the expansion of the CSA-OPC-CS mixture was restrained up to50% by glass fiber, up to 43% by nylon fiber, and up to 28% by steel fiber. The results show that the STS was improved by 57% with glass fiber addition, 43% with steel fiber addition, and 38% with nylon fiber addition. The UCS was also increased by 31% after steel fiber addition, 26% after nylon fiber addition, and16% after glass fiber addition. These results suggest that fiber additions to the expansive shotcrete mixtures can improve durability and strengths while controlling expansion.

Numerical investigation on the tensile fracturing behavior of rock-shotcrete interface based on discrete element method

Four groups of numerical models of Brazilian tests on rock-shotcrete interfaces were successfully conducted by PFC2D. The tensile strength and Young’s modulus of shotcrete were considered. Six different undulations of rock-shotcrete interface were set up. The influences of multiple parameters on the bearing characteristics of the rock-shotcrete interface were studied. The results showed that a better support performance can be obtained by increasing the Young’s modulus of shotcrete rather than the tensile strength of shotcrete. For different tensile strength and Young’s modulus, the increase of sawtooth height has different effects on the support performance. The failure mechanism of the rock-shotcrete interfaces was analysed in detail. The stress shielding effect and stress concentration effect caused by the shape characteristics of rock-shotcrete interface were observed. The influence of these parameters on the overall support performance should be fully considered in a reasonable support design.

INTERFACIAL DEBONDING OF COATED-FIBER-REINFORCED COMPOSITES UNDER TENSION-TENSION CYCLIC LOADING

A new degradation function of the friction coefficient is used.Based on the double shear-lag model and Paris formula,the interracial damage of coated- fiber-reinforced composites under tension-tension cyclic loading is studied.The effects of strength and thickness of the coating materials on the debond stress,debond rate as well as debond length are simulated.

In-situ measure to internal stress of shotcrete layer in soft-rock roadway

In order to solve the difficult conditions of soft rock,water-trickling and hard-maintain of main air-return roadway in Tarangaole Colliery,high pretensioned stress and intensive bolt-shotcrete support program was designed and mechanical property of shotcrete layer was specially monitored through utilizing a type of concrete stress meter with oscillating chord after the program was carried out.It was indicated that,due to rock pressure and support resistance,the interior of shotcrete layer would emerge diverse stresses in axial,radial and tangential directions.With time passing internal stresses in three directions,whose average values were-0.061,0.043 and 0.517 MPa respectively,fluctuated first and then tended to stability slowly.The axial and radial stresses were relatively smaller than tangential stress which was 11,12 times the two formers respectively.Along the section of roadway,axial and tangential stresses distributed symmetrically and increased gradually from the top of arch to the waist of wall,but reduced at the foot of wall.Radial stresses reduced from the top of arch to the waist of arch first,and then increased in the waist of wall.Axial stresses were tensile substantially,except for stresses in arch vault tending to compressive,but all the radial stresses were compressive.Nevertheless,tangential stresses in the wall were compressive and tangential stresses in the arch were tensile.During the period of roadway excavating,the stress of shotcrete layer was less than its ultimate bearing capacity,with no significant stress concentration.At the end of this article,some suggests are given to shotcrete support design.

Fiber-reinforced Mechanism and Mechanical Performance of Composite Fibers Reinforced Concrete

To understand the enhancing effect and fiber-reinforced mechanism of composite fibers reinforced cement concrete, the influences of composite fibers on micro-cracks and the distribution of composite fibers were evaluated by optical electron micrometer(OEM) and scanning electron microscope(SEM). Three kinds of fiber, such as polyacrylonitrile-based carbon fiber, basalt fiber, and glass fiber, were used in the composite fibers reinforced cement concrete. The composite fibers could form a stable structure in concrete after the liquid-phase coupling treatment, gas-liquid double-effect treatment, and inert atmosphere drying. The mechanical properties of composite fibers reinforced concrete(CFRC) were studied by universal test machine(UTM). Moreover, the effect of composite fibers on concrete was analyzed based on the toughness index and residual strength index. The results demonstrated that the composite fibers could improve the mechanical properties of concrete, while the excessive amount of composite fibers had an adverse effect on the mechanical properties of concrete. The composite fibers could significantly improve the toughness index of CFRC, and the increment rate is more than 30%. The composite fibers could form a mesh structure, which could promote the stability of concrete and guarantee the excellent mechanical properties.

A parallel fast multipole BEM and its applications to large-scale analysis of 3-D fiber-reinforced composites

In this paper, an adaptive boundary element method （BEM） is presented for solving 3-D elasticity problems. The numerical scheme is accelerated by the new version of fast multipole method （FMM） and parallelized on distributed memory architectures. The resulting solver is applied to the study of representative volume element （RVE） for short fiberreinforced composites with complex inclusion geometry. Numerical examples performed on a 32-processor cluster show that the proposed method is both accurate and efficient, and can solve problems of large size that are challenging to existing state-of-the-art domain methods.

Porosity,Pore Size Distribution and Chloride Permeability of Shotcrete Modified with Nano Particles at Early Age

Nano particles have been found to be effective in enhancing many properties of regular concretes. However, there is little information on the effect of nano particles on shotcrete. In fact, if similar positive effect of nano particles can also appear in shotcrete, they will greatly benefit the wide application of shotcrete in more and more repair and strengthening of structures in civil engineering, especially in corrosive environments. In this study, through experiments on 70 specimens, the effects of nano SiO2, CaCO3 and Al2O3 particles on the early-age porosity, pore size distribution, compressive strength and chloride permeability of shotcrete were investigated.Test results indicated that nano SiO2 particles significantly increased the compressive strength and chloride penetration resistance; nano Al2O3 and CaCO3 particles had slight enhancing effect on the compressive strength; nano CaCO3 particles were most effective in promoting the chloride penetration resistance of shotcrete. As a conclusion, nano SiO2 particles were recommended when both early age compressive strength and chloride penetration resistance were crucial, and nano CaCO3 particles were recommended when only chloride penetration resistance was concerned for their high cost-effectiveness.

Peridynamic Modeling and Simulation of Fracture Process in Fiber-Reinforced Concrete

In this study,a peridynamic fiber-reinforced concrete model is developed based on the bond-based peridynamic model with rotation effect(BBPDR).The fibers are modelled by a semi-discrete method and distributed with random locations and angles in the concrete specimen,since the fiber content is low,and its scale is smaller than the concrete matrix.The interactions between fibers and concrete matrix are investigated by the improvement of the bond’s strength and stiffness.Also,the frictional effect between the fibers and the concrete matrix is considered,which is divided into static friction and slip friction.To validate the proposed model,several examples are simulated,including the tensile test and the three-point bending beam test.And the numerical results of the proposed model are compared with the experiments and other numerical models.The comparisons show that the proposed model is capable of simulating the fracture behavior of the fiber-reinforced concrete.After adding the fibers,the tensile strength,bending strength,and toughness of the fiber-reinforced concrete specimens are improved.Besides,the fibers distribution has an impact on the crack path,especially in the three-point bending beam test.

Strengthening reinforced concrete beams using prestressed glass fiber-reinforced polymer-Part II:Analytical study

Strengthening reinforced concrete (R. C.) beams using prestressed glass fiber-reinforced polymer (PGFRP) was studied experimentally as described in Part I of this paper (Huang et al., 2005). In that paper, R. C. beams, R. C. beams with GFRP (glass fiber-reinforced polymer) sheets, and R. C. beams with PGFRP sheets were tested in both under-strengthened and over-strengthened cases. The test results showed that the load-carrying capacities (ultimate loads) of the beams with GFRP sheets were greater than those of the beams without polymer sheets. The load-carrying capacities of beams with PGFRP sheets were greater than those of beams with GFRP sheets. The objective of this work is to develop an analytical method to compute all of these load-carrying capacities. This analytical method is independent of the experiments and based only on the traditional R. C. and P. C. (prestressed concrete) theory. The analytical results accorded with the test results. It is suggested that this analytical method be used for analyzing and designing R. C. beams strengthened using GFRP or PGFRP sheets.

A constitutive model for evaluation of mechanical behavior of fiber-reinforced cemented sand

The aim of this study is to present a constitutive model for prediction of the mechanical behavior of fiberreinforced cemented sand. For this purpose, a generalized plasticity constitutive model of sandy soil is selected and the parameters of the model are determined for three types of sandy soils using the results of triaxial tests. Next, the proposed model is developed using the existing models based on the physicomechanical characteristics of fiber-reinforced cemented sand. The elastic parameters, flow rule and hardening law of the base model are modified for fiber-reinforced cemented sand. To verify the proposed model, the predicted results are compared with those of triaxial tests performed on fiber-reinforced cemented sand. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed model is studied at different confining pressures, and cement and fiber contents.

Artificial intelligence model for studying unconfined compressive performance of fiber-reinforced cemented paste backfill

To reduce the difficulty of obtaining the unconfined compressive strength(UCS) value of fiber-reinforced cemented paste backfill(CPB) and analyze the comprehensive impact of conventional and fiber variables on the compressive property, a new artificial intelligence model was proposed by combining a newly invented meta-heuristics algorithm(salp swarm algorithm, SSA) and extreme learning machine(ELM) technology. Aiming to test the reliability of that model, 720 UCS tests with different cement-to-tailing mass ratio, solid mass concentration, fiber content, fiber length, and curing time were carried out, and a strength evaluation database was collected. The obtained results show that the optimized SSA-ELM model can accurately predict the uniaxial compressive strength of the fiber-reinforced CPB, and the model performance of SSA-ELM model is better than ANN, SVR and ELM models. Variable sensitivity analysis indicates that fiber content and fiber length have a significant effect on the UCS of fiber-reinforced CPB.

INFLUENCE OF LOADING RATE ON DYNAMIC FRACTURE BEHAVIOR OF FIBER-REINFORCED COMPOSITES

The effect of loading rate on the dynamic fracture properties and the failure mechanisms of glass fiber-reinforced composite materials under mode I fracture is studied. Dynamic reflective caustic experiments are carried out for two loading rates. By measuring the characteristic dimensions of the shadow spots during the caustic experiments, the dynamic SIFs are calculated for different loading rates. The experimental results indicate that the dynamic fracture toughness Kid increases remarkably with increasing loading rate, and the crack grows faster under the high-velocity impact. Moreover, by examining the crack growth routes and the fracture surfaces, it is shown that the loading rate also greatly affects the failure mechanisms at micro-scale.

Evaluation of earthquake impact on magnitude of the minimum principal stress along a shotcrete lined pressure tunnel in Nepal

In situ stress condition in rock mass is influenced by both tectonic activity and geological environment such as faulting and shearing in the rock mass.This influence is of significance in the Himalayan region,where the tectonic movement is active,resulting in periodic dynamic earthquakes.Each large-scale earthquake causes both accumulation and sudden release of strain energy,instigating changes in the in situ stress environment in the rock mass.This paper first highlights the importance of the magnitude of the minimum principal stress in the design of unlined or shotcrete lined pressure tunnel as water conveyance system used for hydropower schemes.Then we evaluated the influence of local shear faults on the magnitude of the minimum principal stress along the shotcrete lined high pressure tunnel of Upper Tamakoshi Hydroelectric Project(UTHP)in Nepal.A detailed assessment of the in situ stress state is carried out using both measured data and three-dimensional(3D)numerical analyses with FLAC3D.Finally,analysis is carried out on the possible changes in the magnitude of the minimum principal stress in the rock mass caused by seismic movement(dynamic loading).A permanent change in the stress state at and nearby the area of shear zones along the tunnel alignment is found to be an eminent process.