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Ground Support Research at The WA School of Mines: Ernesto VILLAESCUSA
Ground Support Research at The WA School of Mines: Ernesto VILLAESCUSA
Ground Support Research at The WA School of Mines: Ernesto VILLAESCUSA
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[INVITED PAPER]
ABSTRACT
Mining in Western Australia in the next two decades will be approaching depths and conditions in which the induced stress regimes will approach the strength of the rock masses surrounding the excavations. In such cases, failure may occur violently due to
the energy stored within the rock masses. Furthermore, in those highly stressed regions of a rock mass, sudden slip on major structures in the vicinity of the excavations are more likely to occur with an associated release of energy in the form of compres sive and
shear waves that excite the rock near the boundaries of excavations. In order to be prepared for such scenarios, and to ensure safe
and economical excavations in the future, the WA School of Mines (WASM) and a number of sponsoring companies have conceptualized and undertaken a number of research projects in ground support technology. The projects range from static and dynamic
laboratory testing of support and reinforcement elements to in-situ assessment of ground support corrosivity. The project background for each of the stabilization research projects at WASM has been summarized together with details of the methodology,
current status, applications and future work.
Keywords: Ground support, Laboratory testing, Field monitoring
1. INTRODUCTION
The purpose of ground support is to maintain excavation
safety and access for their intended lifespan. The
effectiveness of a support strategy is important for two main
reasons, namely: safety to personnel and equipment and also
to achieve the most economical extraction of ore. The type of
ground support required in a particular location is dependent
on several factors including the rock mass strength, the
geometry of the excavation, the induced stresses, the blasting
practices and the weathering process. In most mining
operations, the ground support design is based on previous
experience and evolves over a number of years (Brown,
2004). In many instances there may be nothing technically
wrong with the designs and the performance can be assessed
to be acceptable. However, rock mass conditions usually
change with time (for example, stresses increase as the depth
of mining increases and when the global extraction increases)
and accordingly ground support performance may change and
become unacceptable.
Over the last 10 years or so, the WA School of Mines
(WASM) has undertaken (in conjunction with a number of
sponsoring companies) applied research to characterize the
rock masses and their response to mining activities. To avoid
uncontrolled rock mass failure it is necessary to more fully
understand the pre-existing rock mass conditions and stresses,
optimise excavation design and sequence and to install
ground support that is resistant to both static and dynamic
loadings. The current WASM research portfolio as part of the
CRC Mining comprises the following projects (Figure 1):
JCRM All rights reserved.
S801
Geological
regime
S802
Rock mass
characterization
S803
Performance
prediction
S807
New
technology
Excavation
stability
S806
Backfill
mining voids
S808
Shotcrete
support
S804
Ground support
evaluation
S805
Ground support
implementation
Guide
Rails
Remote Activated
Release Hook
Maximum Load 4.5t
Max Height 5m
Guide
Rails
645kg Beam
Computer
and Data
Logger
2.4m long
specimen
with break
at 1m
Samples
to be
tested
Buffer
Simulated
Ejected
Mass
Buffer
Video
grid for
back up
analysis
High
Speed
Video
Camera
Embedment length
in anchor zone
Stiffened
Deep Beam
ical
log nuity
o
e
i
g
ont
disc
Reinforcement
Interface
Flange welded
to collar pipe
Collar zone
Block
Movement
Loading mass
comprising
steel disks
clamped to
flange
Buffer
Buffer
Plate
External
Fixture
Beam resting on
the buffers at the
start of a test
Drop initiated
by electronic
release
mechanism
Buffer
Piston
2 tonne
mass of
steel disks
Research to date has been focused to develop a performance criterion for comparison of a number of commercially
available reinforcement systems. Comparisons based solely
on energy absorbed are not sufficient, and the analysis must
include for example dynamic force - displacement responses
as well as practical considerations for total displacement allowed before rock mass unraveling occurs. Displacement is
particularly important. For example, although a reinforcement
system may have large displacement capacities (and hence
energy absorbed due to the change in potential energy of the
mass following impact) it may cause the rock mass to disintegrate to the point where the support system may not be able
to hold the broken rock. Figure 7 shows a summary of typical
WASM results for elements other than friction stabilizers.
Additional work at the facility has included a comprehensive study of friction bolts and other recently developed bolts,
such as the resin grouted yielding Garford bolt (Varden et al
2008).
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
Motor control
unit
Instrumentation
readout unit
Instrumentation
panel
Sample
clamps
Load bearing
frame
Sample support
& sample frame
Jack shaft
& load cell
140
Weld Mesh
120
Chain Link Mesh
100
Force (kN)
In 2005, the Western Australian School of Mines designed and built a large scale static testing facility (Figure 8)
to complement its existing dynamic test facility. This new
facility comprises two steel frames; a lower one used to support the sample and the other to provide loading reaction
(Morton et al, 2007). The mesh sample is assembled within a
stiff frame that rests on the support frame. A screw feed jack
is mounted on the reaction frame. The screw feed jack is driven at a constant speed (4mm per minute) and allows large
displacements to be imposed on the mesh. Load is applied to
the mesh through a spherical seat to a 300mm square, 35mm
thick hardened steel plate. The sample size is 1300mm x
1300mm and the mesh may be fully constrained on all sides
or restrained at discrete locations.
The application of the boundary conditions to the mesh
sample is the most critical element in mesh testing (Pakalnis
and Ames, 1983; Tannant et al, 1997; Thompson et al., 1999;
Roth et al., 2004; Van Sint Jan and Cavieres, 2004; Dolinar,
2006). At WASM, a new sample frame was designed that
provided a fully fixed restraint system for the mesh boundary.
A system using high tensile bar, eye nuts and D shackles
passing through the beam at allocated points was selected as
the most appropriate boundary system (Figure 9). The same
boundary restraint system has been subsequently used at the
WASM dynamic test facility.
Testing to date has been undertaken on three different
mesh types; weld, chain link and plastic. Standard welded
wire mesh used in Western Australian mines (100mm x
100mm x 5.6mm galvanised weld mesh) was first tested. The
effect of the following installation practices (not dissimilar
from reality) has been investigated including; holes cut in the
mesh under the loading plate, loading on the overlap between
two sheets of mesh, cross wires up versus cross wires down.
With few exceptions all the weld mesh samples first ruptured
at the boundary where the wire was under direct load. Failure
then progressed along the boundary, alternating between two
sides beginning with the directly loaded wires. Three rupture
mechanisms have been observed; tensile failure of the wire,
weld failure or failure of the wire through the heat affected
zone (HAZ) (Villaescusa, 1999). The failure mechanism in
combination with an assessment of the rupture force provides
and indication of the quality of the mesh.
The second type of mesh tested was a 4mm high tensile
wire chain link mesh provided by Geobrugg (Roth et al,
2004). The chain link mesh failed on the edge of the plate
either as a result of the plate cutting through the wires or as a
result of the wires cutting each other. Generally only one or
two strands broke. After the first rupture the load dropped
completely as a result of plate movement and the test was
stopped. In general, the chain link mesh is less stiff and has
been designed using high tensile wires to enable capacities
over three times greater than that of standard weld mesh.
Plastic mesh was also tested to assess its capability as
surface support element in highly corrosive environments.
The force displacement results for each of these mesh type
is shown in Figure 10.
80
60
40
20
0
0
100
200
300
Displacement at loading point (mm)
Figure 10. Static force - displacement results for different
mesh types
Helicopter release
hook
14
Weld Mesh Dynamic
Drop beam
12
Buffer
10
Chain link squares shaded
grey indicate no rupture
8
6
4
2
Loading Mass
0
Mesh frame
100
200
300
Total Displacement at Rupture (mm)
400
Figure 12. Dynamic testing of chain link and weld mesh support
elements
Figure 13. Deformation of chain link and weld mesh support elements
difficult to detect given that the only visible part of an installed element is the plate, nut and a short length of the bolt
indicating the orientation of installation with respect to an
excavation wall. As an example, for a fully encapsulated cement or resin grouted rebar, it is very difficult to determine
the bonded length (effective bolt encapsulation) along the
entire axis of the bolt. Because a full bolt capacity may be
mobilized with very short embedment lengths of good quality
grout, conventional pull testing of exposed collar lengths
within a fully (resin or cement) grouted element is almost
meaningless.
Pull testing as suggested by The International Society of
Rock Mechanics (Brown, 1978) is only applicable to ungrouted point anchor and friction/Swellex bolts. For fully
encapsulated elements, the method only provides an indication of grout effectiveness at the collar or at the first (unknown) location along the bolt axis where the grout is effectively working. For fully grouted elements, pull testing only
provides a definite indication of poor installation in cases
where the entire length of encapsulated reinforcement fails
well below its designed capacity.
Figure 16. Overcored resin (left) and cement grouted (right) bolts in very poor rock masses
Figure 17. Prepared short sections of overcored bolts prior to pull testing
recovered 140mm diameter core undergoes minimal disturbance even in very poor rock masses that have been reinforced using friction stabilizers (e.g. Figure 15).
Bolt overcoring provides a range of information including
the location and frequency of geological discontinuities,
overall rock mass conditions, bolt encapsulation, load transfer
along the bolt axis and corrosion effects (Hassell and Villaescusa, 2005). Overcoring in broken ground or shear zones
shows that very little resin migration occurs in jumbo-installed resin bolts. The resin simply fills the annulus
between the bolt and the borehole. Because of its viscosity,
the resin is unable to penetrate the rock mass fissures and
voids. In comparison, significant cement migration has been
observed during overcoring of cement grouted bolts in poor
ground conditions (Figure 16). The degree of rock mass interlocking using cement grout is superior compared to that
achieved by resin grouting or friction stabilizers. Interlocking
around an underground excavation has been suggested as an
important mechanism to allow the rock mass to be
self-supporting (Windsor and Thompson, 1993).
Following overcoring, laboratory testing can be used to
assess the performance in terms of encapsulation quality and
load transfer of any recovered bolt-rock mass sections. The
overcored samples are geologically mapped and appropriate
sections are cut from the sample to test the
force-displacement
characteristics.
In
general,
a
force-displacement curve provides an indication of stiffness,
peak and residual forces, as well as the displacement capacity
for the embedment length tested. The results can be used as a
relative measure of load transfer (installation quality and bolt
effectiveness) along a bolt axis. The concepts of load transfer
and embedment length are critical to the understanding of any
force-deformation results (Windsor and Thompson, 1993).
In general, push tests and pull tests are used to determine
encapsulation quality and relative load transfer along a bolt
axis. Push tests are expected to provide a different response to
pull tests. During push testing (Aziz, 2004) the steel bar is
compressed into the sample, while in pull testing the bar is
tested in tension. An advantage of push testing is that it allows several tests to be carried out along a single bolt axis. A
disadvantage is that a push test is likely to over-estimate the
stiffness and peak/residual loads. However, provided the push
testing is carried out for similar embedment lengths, the results can be used as a relative measure of load transfer
along the bolt axis.
The typical embedment length used for meaningful
push/pull testing is usually set at 300-500mm. However, the
total sample length required for a push test is 400mm, while
for a typical pull test the sample length required ranges from
700-1000mm. For a 2.4m long bolt, it is possible to select up
140
Load
Displacement
120
Load (kN)
100
80
60
40
3A 0.00 0.30m
3B 0.40 0.70m
3C 0.80 1.10m
20
3D 1.20 1.50m
0
0
10
12
14
16
18
Displacement (mm)
Figure 18. Typical push test arrangement and results for cement grouted HGB bolts
a) Failure at resin-rock
interface
c) Sideway displacement
of resin
Figure 19. Example of effective load transfer (a), and low strength due to excessive gloving by the resin cartridge (b and c)
to 5 samples for push testing and usually two for pull testing.
This allows the variability of encapsulation and relative load
transfer along the entire bolt axis to be well established.
In preparation for push/pull testing, some of the rock is
removed from the overcore, leaving a section of the element
partly exposed (Figure 17). The remaining rock/element section is then confined in a metal jacket to simulate the radial
confinement provided by the rock mass in-situ (Hyett et al.,
1992). The exposed section of the element is then pushed or
pulled. A plate is used to restrict the movement of the confined 300-500mm long portion of bolt/rock. The force required to push or pull the element through the rock, and the
element displacement are digitally recorded (Figure 18).
Following pull testing, the elements are inspected and
photographed. Figure 19 shows an example of tested resin
grouted bolts. Where the load transfer was effective, failure of
the short resin bolt embedment occurred at the resin/rock
interface. The frictional resistance was mobilized by shearing
of the resin irregularities at the resin/rock interface. However,
when the resin encapsulation was poor, failure at the
bolt/resin interface was experienced. This implies poor installation practices or excessive hole diameter leading to unsatisfactory mixing of the resin.
Overcored samples along the axis of a hole can be used to
determine the load transfer variability within similar embed-
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