A novel rock bolting system exploiting steel particles

The effectiveness of rock bolting in ground control has been extensively investigated, mainly for resin based systems. Alternative coupling materials are needed to have good mechanical performance and to reduce the economic impact. This study proposed a new bolting system exploiting steel particles as coupling material. The applicability of this system was assessed by laboratory and field pullout tests, assisted by digital imaging correlation (DIC), infrared thermography (IRT) and acoustic emission (AE). The results indicated that, for a 20 mm diameter bolt, the suitable steel particle size and corresponding inner diameter of borehole were 1.4 and 28 mm, respectively. For bolts installed in steel tubes, the particles improved the loading capacity compared to the resin bonded ones. Additional pullout tests on cement blocks indicated that steel particles can be effective for hard rock, whilst resin was a better choice for bolting of soft rock. Similar understanding was obtained by pullout tests in engineering fields, which demonstrated that the steel particles coupled bolts can provide favorable effects in hard rock mass, while the effects were negligible when installed in extremely soft coal mass. The wide set of multi-technique measurements helped to understand the mechanisms involved in the performance of the bolting system with coupling steel particles.