Model test on support scheme for carbonaceous slate tunnel in high geostress zone at high depth

The Muzhailing extra-long highway tunnel and corresponding inclined shafts in Lanzhou,Gansu Province,China passes through structurally complex carbonaceous slate that is under high ground stress.Rationally-designed and effective support is of high importance for achieving safe and efficient tunnel construction.The No.2 inclined shaft of Muzhailing Tunnel was taken as the engineering background prototype,for which,a similar model test was conducted to evaluate the effect of highly pretightened constant resistance(NPR,Negative Poisson’s Ratio)anchor cable support provision to the geologically complex carbonaceous slate at different depths.Two schemes were proposed during testing:one scheme was without support and the second was with asymmetric support from highly pre-tightened constant resistance anchor cable.Digital speckle displacement analysis system and micro-groundstress sensors were employed to measure the deformation and shear stress distribution of the tunnel.The results demonstrated that through the second support scheme,the deformation of the surrounding rock could be effectively ameliorated,while this support scheme was applied on the project site of the No.2 inclined shaft,to explore the rationality of the scheme through field engineering tests.On-site monitoring indicated that the deformation of the surrounding rock was within the reasonable design range and the problem of severe tunnel deformation was effectively controlled.The research methods and related conclusions can be used as a reference for the treatment of large deformation problems in deep-buried soft rock tunnels.

Damage evolution and strength attenuation characteristics of carbonaceous slate under low velocity dynamic impact

Rock is subjected to impact loading during tunnel and subsurface engineering.For understanding the damage evolution of rock under dynamic impact, mechanical research was performed on the carboniferous slate surrounding the Muzhailing tunnel under different influencing factors based on the Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar(SHPB)experimental system. The results show that:(1)carbonaceous slate exhibits a continuous failure process, which develops more rapidly in the presence of joints;simultaneously, a negative correlation was found between the joint density and the dynamic strength of rock;(2) under different impact velocities and wavelengths, the method of using incident energy to represent the dynamic damage threshold of carbonaceous slate under high in situ stress was proposed based on the kinetic energy theorem, and the damage threshold of carbonaceous slate was calculated to be 53 J;(3) impact times is the most critical core variable and negatively correlated with peak strength and positively correlated with strain rate, maximum strain, and cumulative damage. The carbonaceous slate is subjected to repeated load impacts, which is followed by accumulation of damage, continuous strength attenuation, and internal dominant fracture expansion. In particular,when the samples break, there is only one main rupture surface, which is the most significant difference from the single impact rupture form.