DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF HYDROSTATIC MINE SHAFT LINERS USING CAST

IRON TUBBING TECHNOLOGY

*J. Ouellet
Tetra Tech
800-555 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6B 1M1
(*Corresponding author: Jacques.Ouellet@TetraTech.com)

J. Konopka
Subterranean Mine Shaft Design
 DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF HYDROSTATIC MINE SHAFT LINERS USING CAST
IRON TUBBING TECHNOLOGY

ABSTRACT

The design of hydrostatic liner for the deep potash mine shaft in Saskatchewan poses tremendous
technological challenges. Technology has evolved to a point where one could consider new innovative
approach to hydrostatic liner design. But there is still a place for conventional technologies such as cast
iron tubbings. As will be discussed in this paper, improvement to manufacturing process, installation
procedures and even new materials can bring this technology to an excellent level of performance. With
the spur of new projects in the Potash industry of Saskatchewan, the authors worked in various shaft liner
designs from the conceptual stage through to the construction phase. They were either directly leading the
design work on some of these projects or acting as external reviewer on others. Most of these shafts liners
design involved the cast iron tubbing technology and ground freezing. The major issue in sinking potash
shafts in Saskatchewan is to go through the water-bearing ground formation under high pressure, known as
the Blairmore or Manville. The only proven stabilizing technology for these formations is ground freezing.
For a potash shaft, dry shaft conditions are desirable, so a fully waterproof hydrostatic liner is required. All
exiting potash mine shafts in Saskatchewan except for two with composite steel-concrete lining used the
cast iron tubbing technology. Two new shaft tubbing liners have been constructed recently, one in the
Athabasca Basin and one for a potash mine in Saskatchewan. When the authors began working on these
new projects, what became quickly evident is that the technological knowhow for designing and
constructing tubbing liners was no longer available within Canada and that the past construction methods
used to sink tubbing lined shafts is obsolete. The tubbing liner for the shafts sunk in the sixties were
designed either by German or British companies. In both of these countries only few tubbing lined shafts
were sunk in last 40 years and the technology used in the sixties was not improved. There are only few
countries where tubbing is routinely produced and installed: China, Russia, Ukraine and Poland. Out of
this countries technology in Poland is most advanced. The authors, working in close collaboration with
engineers from Poland, attempted to rebuild this knowledge. This process involved thorough analysis of
old technical reports, literature review and study of current polish design and construction practices.
Through actual construction experience some lessons were learned, as well as ideas for improvements. In
this paper, the authors will present a succinct review of design and procurement process. But, the practical
aspects of the construction and installation methodology will be treated with more emphasis, more
specifically the practice leading to good liner performance. Some of the poorly understood technical
aspects of tubbing installation will be discussed more thoroughly and some currently accepted myths
dispelled. Finally, the authors will present some new installation methods that could improve further the
waterproofing of these tubbing liners. By taking advantage of new waterproofing technologies, significant
improvements could be achieved on eliminating potential leakage through tubbing bolted joints.

KEYWORDS

Mine shaft, Liner, Design standards, Cast iron tubbing, Shaft sinking, Installation method, Water proofing,
Tubbing bolts torque, Ground freezing, Liner loading, Buckling, Grouting, Lead Gaskets.

INTRODUCTION

Hydrostatic shaft liner is required to prevent formation water under hydrostatic pressure to enter
the shaft. There are 3 types of hydrostatic liners used in deep mine shafts:
 Composite liner (continuously welded steel plates sandwiched between concrete).
  Tubbing liner (bolted cast steel segments with concrete between tubbing and
excavation)
 “Hydrostatic concrete liner” (thick concrete liner resisting in theory hydrostatic pressure).

Composite liners are 100% waterproof, extremely expensive and difficult to install. They require
preliminary liner (top down) and are installed in the 30 – 40 m high sections (bottom-up). Résistance to
shaft movement due to mining activity is excellent. They are maintenance free. Only handful shafts with
composite liners is in existence.
Tubbing liners are most popular waterproof shaft liners. They are fraction of cost of composite steel liner,
easy to install and do not require preliminary liner, if properly designed. There are only liners, which can
be safely installed in large diameter, deep frozen shafts. They are also used in the shaft sunk in the hard
rock, where grouting alone is not sufficient to prevent ingress of water. If properly installed and grouted
they are almost maintenance free.
“Hydrostatic” concrete liner is the cheapest one, but if properly grouted the cost and sinking time may
exceed tubbing liner. We do not know any such shaft, which is dry.

In most cases hydrostatic liner will be required when unstable, water saturated ground formations are
encountered. This type of ground conditions, where both water ingress and stabilisation are required, need
ground freezing. Contrary to grouting, once the shaft liner is established and the ground allowed thawing,
the shaft liner will experience the full hydrostatic pressure and ground load. This means that the engineer
must design a hydrostatic liner for ground and water pressure. Such conditions are prevalent in the
Saskatchewan potash mine shafts. All these shafts have to traverse the Blairmore formation. It is found at a
depth that may vary from place to place, in the last case the authors were involved with it was encountered
approximately from a depth of 470 m to 570 m from the collar of the shaft. This formation shows
quicksand like behavior is fully saturated and exhibits a high hydraulic conductivity. The only successful
shafts sink through this formation to date used ground freezing. Except in one case where a composite
lining was used, all the others relied on the tubbing liner design. Actually, two recent mine shaft projects,
from 2010 to 2012, in Saskatchewan used a tubbing as lining.
The basic German design steps for a tubbing liner can be found in the “Guidelines for Calculating
Shaft Linings in non-stable Rock” published by Link and Stos in1985. Two recognized set of standards
exist defining the calculation methodology required to dimension a tubbing liner. The first set is from
Germany DIN 21500:2001-11 “Shaft lining design & dimensioning”. The second one is Polish standard,
PN-G05015 C Rev. June 1997 “Design procedure for composite lining (Tubbing & Concrete). For the
reader unfamiliar with a typical tubbing liner design, Figure 1 illustrates the typical construction of such
liners for the modern top down installation method. In this figure the reader can see a section of the
tubbing ring with its concrete backing. At the bottom, the jacking ring used to assemble and lift the next
tubbing ring is illustrated with the outriggers extended to the excavation wall. These, in combination with
scribing boards provide the support for the concrete during pouring.
 Figure 1 – A typical tubbing liner construction, this example illustrates the top/down method

One reading through both set of standards will discover that the calculation process is very similar
in both German and Polish standards. This is not surprising, considering that both standards were
developed on the same fundamental principles. But, if the engineer uses the German and Polish standards,
the end result will be different even if all other parameters used are identical. This is due to two different
assumptions between the two existing standards.

The major differences between the Polish and German standards are:
 The Polish standard considers the tubbing shaft lining as a composite, where the concrete
and the cast iron tubbings are acting together.
 The German standard is treating the concrete as a backfill material assuming that all
hydrostatic pressure is acting only on the tubbing.

The first one concerns the bonding strength between the back of the tubbing segment and the concrete
backing. In the case of the German standard, no bond is considered, so this contribution is ignored. The
argument, from the German standard point of view, is that in the event water can reach the interface
between the tubbing and the concrete, the hydrostatic pressure would be sufficient to de-laminate this
contact. Consequently, the tubbing would see this full pressure and must be designed for that load,
ignoring any possible contribution from the concrete where water pressure is concerned. The Polish
standard takes into account the existence of a minimum 1 MPa bond between the cast steel and the
concrete, which can only achieved if concrete and tubbing deflect at the same rate under outside pressure.
To maintain this requirement the ratio of concrete to tubbing thickness need to be proportional to Young
Modulus of respective materials.
Both interpretations are correct if we take into consideration that:
 The German standard was developed for the tubbing installation from the bottom up, where
achieving a bond between the preliminary liner, the thin annulus of cement backing and the cast
iron tubbing is impossible.
 The Polish standard was developed for the tubbing installation from the top down, where bond
between the concrete and the tubbing is easily achieved.
The second difference comes from the strength assumption for the cast steel. In the Polish
standard the cast steel strength will be defined from laboratory test samples (95% confidence level). In the
case of the German standard the strength value to use in the calculation is defined and fixed by the
standard depending on the grade of cast steel used to manufacture the tubbing segments. The values
defined by the German standards, when compared to actual test values, are much lower.
 These differences in the assumptions are not affecting the calculation methodology as such. But
for the same loading conditions and dimensions the German standard will produce a more conservative
design compared to the Polish standard. The other consequence of the German approach is that the
maximum depth (or maximum liner load) to which a tubbing liner can be designed is much lower than
using Polish approach. Current cast steel technology imposes limits on the maximum thickness a tubbing
segment can be casted. Presently the maximum thickness available is 140 mm. It can be easily increased by
re-designing tubbings back ribs.
The aim of this paper is not to attempt to settle which standard should be favored. But one may
consider that Poland engineers are routinely designing and lining shafts with tubbing segments to depths of
700 m and diameters up to 7.5 m. A total of 30 shafts are sunk in LGOM region, all showing excellent
performance in regard to water leakage. Currently Polish engineers are designing tubbing lined shafts 9.0
m diameter to a depth of 1100m for a potash mine in Russia.

DESIGN METHODOLOGY

The first step in initiating the design process for a liner is establishing the loads that will act on
the liner. This part of the work is the domain of the geotechnical engineer and will not be treated here.
However there is one additional and important load, the freeze wall load, which can be only determined by
shaft freezing specialist. Freeze wall is formed to isolate shaft excavation from formation water. If the
freeze wall continues to develop after the lining is installed additional load on the lining will occur. The
overloading value will be in excess of final load on the lining. The overloading may buckle and fracture
concrete lining as well squeezing out lead gaskets of tubbing joints if the installation of the tubbing lining
is not properly design. Proper timing of freeze wall formation and tubbing installation is essential.

The design process is an iterative one. For the calculation the tubbing segment thickness and
geometry must be known to calculate the basic section properties involved in the formulas. So, a starting
value for thickness must be used and the engineer will go through the various calculation steps. At the end
of the first step the engineer verifies that the thickness used can support the loads with an acceptable safety
factor. Then he will verify that the design meets the buckling criteria. If not, the thickness of the tubbing
segment is modified, the new section properties determined and the calculation redone. This process is
repeated until the suitable thickness is found. This step is actually the easy part of the design. In order to
produce a fully functional design the engineer must be knowledgeable about the casting process,
machining involved as well as the construction process. Lack of knowledge of any of these elements can
lead to procurement issues and/or constructability issues. Geometry of the tubbing can’t be simply copied
from the previous design unless shaft parameters are the same. We witnessed tubbing design where
“expert” took drawing of 5 m dia shaft tubbing and “modified” for 6 m shaft. Hellas, he forgot that the
bolts are not made from rubber and need to be inserted straight. Fortunately foundry found mistake before
production started. Another “designer” forgot to chamfer front faces of recently installed tubbing, thus
practically preventing sealing lead gasket by “calking”

The basic steps for calculating the required thickness are summarized below.

Stage 1. Calculate tubbing thickness based on full hydrostatatic pressure

Stage 2. Check tubbing thickness for:
 Compressive and bending stresses in cast iron
 Hoop stress in tubbing and concrete
 Bonding stress between concrete and tubbing
 Check tubbing lining bending using Winkler-Bach formula
Stage 3. Check tubbing lining for non-uniform pressure

Replace Above (yellow) with text below?

 1. Select the material properties of the composite liner:
 Ec (concrete)
 Et (tubbing)
 Select thickness of concrete lining based on ratio Et / Ec
2. Calculate average stress in lining (MPa)
3. Calculate the average hoop stress in the tubbing (MPa):
4. Calculate Maximum hoop stress in concrete (MPa)
5. Calculate Maximal buckling stress
6. Design to be checked for bonding stress between tubbing and concrete (MPa) according to
formula
7. If >1 MPa tubbing design should be checked that the following condition is fulfilled (buckling
condition):

Pcr= ((3Etlt)/( r3tzht))> pw (1)

Where:
Pcr – critical pressure (MPa)
lt – tubbing’s moment of inertia (m4)

In order to gain more confidence with the results of the above calculations, the authors used a 2D
finite element model to calculate the stress distribution in the liner for the dimensions produced by the
design method described above and using the same loading scenario and same material properties. The
numerical results were all within the calculated results produced by the analytical equations proposed
within these standards. Maximum hoop stress at the inner face of the liner did not exceed 100 MPa for an
allowable stress of 200 MPa for the cast steel used in the test case.

Figure 2 – Tubbing thickness obtained with empirical equations verified through FEM simulation
(Phase software)

Installation of a tubbing liner

 The objective of this paper is not to present a detailed technical specification for the construction
of a tubbing liner. Only the general steps will be briefly described. In the discussion section the
construction steps that influence the most the final shaft liner performance will be covered.
Two basic installation methods can be used for tubbing liners. The first one is called the top/down
method and the second one the bottom up approach.
The bottom up approach means that the shaft is first excavated under the provision of a temporary
liner that will support the excavation during the time required for sinking. In sixties either concrete blocks
stacked dry or conventional jump formed concrete lining was used as preliminary liner. After reaching
section depth of about 20 rings (30m) a foundation ring is installed and the liner is built from the bottom up
by stacking the tubbing rings one on top of each other. Although this approach may seem easier at first
glance, it does have some drawbacks:
 A temporary liner is required; its thickness varies from 450 mm to 700 mm (depends on
lining depth and hydrostatic pressure).
 Concrete backfill is required to fill the gap between temporary liner and tubbing.
 Proper connection between sections requires precise surveying of each ring of about 20
tubbings, time consuming and costly as the top ring and bottom ring of previous
tubbings must be align with 3 to 4 mm accuracy.
 Bond between temporary liner, grout and tubbing is non existing.
 Grouting of cold joints in temporary lining through grout holes or concrete ports in
tubbing is practically impossible, as they are located at different elevations.

In the sixties either dry laid concrete wedge shape blocks with soft inserts or jump formed concrete were
used as preliminary liner (about 30 m high). In sixties sinking rates were higher, construction and freeze
times shorter and therefore sinking through Blaimore was often conducted with unfrozen (soft) shaft core.

Recently, in one potash mine shaft the entire Blaimore section was sunk with a preliminary 70 MPa
concrete lining about 700 mm thick and the tubbing installed from the bottom up. This increased height of
preliminary lining was possible because shaft core was totally frozen and freezing temperature was much
lower than in the sixties. The gap between concrete and tubbing was filled with grout. However tubbing
thickness was selected on assumption that the concrete and tubbing form composite liner (tubbing was
designed for the top down installation), which is not the case in the bottom to top installation. Sealing of
tubbing gaskets will be difficult, if not impossible, as full hydrostatic pressure will act directly on the
tubbing. Grouting of cold concrete joints through tubbing is impossible in this case as cold joint of
preliminary concrete are spaced away from the tubbing grout holes reach. Lesson from this example is that
the tubbing lining installation method must be taken into account when tubbings are designed.

The top/down method requires the installation of the first ring that will become the master ring.
As the sinking progress, the next ring is assembled on a specially design jacking ring near the shaft bottom.
Once tubbing ring is assembled on the jacking ring both rings are lifted and bolted to the ring above. The
concrete is then pumped through the ports in previously installed tubbing and the space behind the tubbing
filled. This sequence is repeated for each ring as the sinking progresses. The main advantage of this
method is that no temporary liner is required. The permanent liner closely follows the excavation face and
length of installed tubbing lining is continuous. A well experience crew will manage a sinking cycle that
will allow one ring (1.5 m) per day. This method has a significant safety advantage to the bottom/up
method. Unsupported height of the excavation is minimized as well as stand-up time and excavation
diameter.
The appearance of increased simplicity of the bottom/up approach is deceiving. The installation
quality requirements are just the same. In both approach, the key tubbing installation procedures with
regards to leakage performance are: alignment of the rings within strict tolerances, flange preparation and
lead gasket installation and finally bolting of the tubbing segments.
Crew usually will not be very motivated to spend too much time cleaning and inspecting the
tubbing flange during assembly. But one can’t overstress enough how important this precaution is. If any
concrete or rock small particle is present between the lead gasket and the flange, there is no amount of
pressure or bolt torqueing that will fix it. It will invariably promote water leakage through that joint as well
as create alignment problems at installation.
The alignment problem is dealt with by using alignment pins inserted in through the bolt holes of
the flanges and levelling by changing horizontal gasket thickness. (two pins per segment). Each flange
requires six bolts. So during initial alignment and assembly four bolts will be used. At that stage surveying
is done to insure that the ring is well within tolerances. This surveying is crucial and the important factor to
monitor and correct as soon as detected, is possible positioning drift, meaning a cumulative alignment
error. Such error may be initially small over a few rings but may translate into significant drift at the
bottom of the shaft. The things to monitor closely are ring horizontal level, vertical alignment with respect
to the shaft axis and rotation around the shaft axis. This is especially important in bottom up method or,
when shaft furnishing is attached to the tubbing. In one current installation of sixty rings, rings were
rotated to such extend, that new bunton brackets need to fabricated.
The last crucial installation step is the bolting of the tubbing together. The design required torque
for a typical tubbing is 1100 N-m. In order to properly compress the flanges and its lead gasket this torque
value must be applied. This requirement seems straightforward but, through actual experience of the
authors, one prone to complication and even debate between designers and site personnel. The problem
comes from the design of these bolts. The Figure 3 below illustrates the geometry of the various
components of a tubbing bolt. To create a watertight seal around the bolts two biconvex lead seals are
installed between the steel washers and the tubbing flange. The holes going through the flange have an
angled chamfer that matches the angle of the biconvex seal. A similar chamfer is machined in the steel
washers. As the bolt is gradually tightened the biconvex lead seals are pressed toward the bolt axis and will
actually be progressively extruded in the bolt cavity creating a tight seal around the bolt axis and the bolt
hole in the flange. This unavoidable deformation of the lead seals is quite misunderstood. Some arguments
going as far as decrying you are destroying the seals. Experience has shown the authors that this issue
proved to be much more difficult to debate than the other ones briefly presented above. The following
discussion will focus on this question.

DISCUSSION

In order to produce a tubbing shaft liner that performs well, the most critical factors are not the
design calculation. The design methodology has been used and verified numerous times. Although the
presentation made in this paper only summarizes very roughly the design procedure, the method is simple
and can easily be verified with FEM software programs that are readily available. Contrary to what one
could believe, the initial design is not the most crucial step to guarantee final performance of the liner. The
two key elements are quality of the material and installation procedure. The first one is a procurement
issue. The second one is on site construction procedures.
The procurement of cast iron tubbing will require a comprehensive technical specifications
document for the foundry and a detailed quality control program with internal as well as independent
control by third party during production. The design calculation can be mastered fairly easily by a qualified
structural engineer. But the technical specification document, which is an integral part of the procurement
contract, requires an in depth knowledge of tubbing design, cast iron fabrication process and installation
procedure. These will not be discussed further here.
The most critical step in building a good tubbing liner is the installation procedure. The end result
can still be disappointing if installation procedures were not properly understood and applied. The focus of
our discussion will be the bolting specifications. The bolt geometry has been described above. If these
bolts with lead gaskets are torque to prescribed value, the first thing that will become apparent is the
deformation of the lead gasket. Then that it is impossible to maintain the torque level. The following
Figure 4 illustrates an experiment where a bolt is torqued at the design value of 1100 N-m. It can be
observed that, due to lead creep, the tension of the bolt will quickly fall by as much as 50% of its initial
torque value. Repeated application of the prescribed torque, as shown in this figure, shows that this creep
phenomenon makes impossible to stabilize the tension of the bolts over time. If one repeats the cycle a
sufficient number of time, the trend of the test data indicates that ultimately a stable tension could be
established. This is due to the fact that as we repeat the loading more lead is pressed out from under the
washer and ultimately a steel to steel contact will be established and the tension will be constant. From a
practical point of view, such an approach would make the process way too long and laborious to be
practical. The other approach is to actually apply an initial torque above the design value, in effect
squeezing the excess lead from under the washer and creating a stable tension in the bolts.

Figure 4 – Bolt torque creep over time for repeated load cycles

The picture shown below was taken of one of the tubbing bolted we tested. This bolt was torqued
at 1350 N-M value. Then it was disassembled carefully to preserve the shape of the convex seal in
order to better understand its behavior during bolt installation. The sealing effect of this lead seal is
not as much the compression of the seal between the washer and the surface of the flange. It is the
sealing produced by the extrusion that effectively seals the space between the bolt hole and the bolt
itself. Thus, the argument of preserving as much of the lead seal material between the washer and the
tubbing flange is not a valid one. Achieving the proper compression of the joint (lead gaskets) between
tubbing segments is the driving factor here. Although we are interested in achieving a functional water
seal around the bolt, it remains that the primary seal is the lead gasket in the flange joint. The bolt
seals are a secondary water seal. Any leakage appearing on a bolt actually means failure of the primary
seal, likely in the place where is penetrated by bolt. The overriding requirement here is the installation
of the tubbing with the joints compressed at the required design specifications. This implies that all
bolts must be torque during assembly at a minimal value of 1250 N-m (for M39 bolts Class 5.6) and
re-torque before pouring concrete. Alternatively bolts in horizontal flanges to be installed without lead
bi-convex gasket and removed after concrete is poured and re-installed with gasket. Failure to adhere
to this recommendation will compromise the lead seal performance. Bolting of vertical flanges is not
so critical. Re-tightening bolts after concrete is poured is not required (contrary to popular belief), as
tubbings are already “locked” by concrete. Sealing leaking lead gaskets can be only done by calking.
 Figure 5 – Convex Lead seal shape after application of a 1350 N-m torque

CONCLUSIONS

Tubbing liners have been first used almost 150 years ago. Design principles have improved and
how these composite liners function is much better understood. Much more attention is given today to the
concrete component of the liner that used to be a few decades ago. This technology is still used extensively
in many countries and the tubbing liners produced exhibits excellent performance. Attempts by structural
engineers without experience in casting process, to design “welded tubbings”, or replace proven lead
gaskets with fused “plastic” gaskets shows that the art and science of conventional tubbing installation
which is still in use in other countries is lost in North America.
The authors experience is that, providing knowledgeable engineers are involved, high quality
tubbing lining design and material (procurement) is easily achievable. But the most critical component is
the quality of installation. Achieving the best possible results in the design and procurement phases,
although essential, will not guaranty the delivery of a good en result. The installation must be done by a
crew that is properly trained in every aspect of the construction steps and fully understands the design
specifications and why they are so critical. Creating shortcuts to cut installation time is dangerous. The
construction should never be done without making sure the designer is in control of the procedures and
standards used.
Finding engineering parties that can provide the structural calculation is not difficult. But finding
one that actually has the know how to design tubbing, oversee procurement and installation is the real
challenge. To achieve success, from conception to shaft liner construction, all three components are
required.

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