Experimental and numerical modelling of the weathering effects on shaft lining material

W. Yang, Y. Jia, A.M. Marshall, D. Wanatowski, and R. Stace

Abstract
The collapse of abandoned and often hidden mine shafts is a serious problem in the UK and many parts of Europe. The collapse of these shafts is often related to the failure of the shaft lining. To analyse shafts for stability, the properties of the lining need to be well defined. Many UK shafts are lined by multiple rings of brickwork. Brickwork is a complex structure that is relatively poorly understood in this context. This paper presents an experimental and numerical study of the effects of weathering on the brickwork. The influence of harsh environmental conditions and time were particularly examined. The test samples examined consisted of mortar and brick cylinders, as well as brickwork beams. To reproduce the weathering process in the lab, the samples were placed into three water baths of potable water, an artificial mine water and an aggressive acidic solution, for about one year. Four phases of laboratory tests were conducted throughout the time period in order to assess the degradation of mechanical properties. A corresponding numerical model of the brickwork beams was built using FLAC-3D and validated against experimental data.

Introduction
Masonry was used extensively for mine shaft construction in the UK up to the 1950s. Many shafts were lined by multiple rings of brickwork (constituting brick and mortar). This form of construction is no longer routinely used and its structural analysis is not covered by modern design codes. To analyse the stability of these older abandoned shafts, it is important to simulate realistically the behaviour of the brickwork lining. The properties of the lining need to be well defined. Various researchers have sought to understand the behaviour of brickwork including experimental tests [1-5] and numerical modelling [6-11]. However, the effects of time and environmental conditions on the brickwork are particularly important in the context of shaft linings since the strength of the brickwork could be considerably degraded with time and chemical attack. Very limited literature has been found on the subject of weathering effects on brickwork. Therefore, in order to have a better understanding of the time and environmental effects on shaft lining brickwork and to collect realistic parameters necessary for numerical modelling of shaft linings, weathering tests were conducted. This study was undertaken as part of the Mine Shafts: Improving Security and New Tools for the Evaluation of Risks (MISSTER) project, funded by the European Commission Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS).

Experiment study of weathering effects on brickwork

Test Material The aim of this study was to determine harsh-mine water and time effects on brickwork. Brick, mortar and brickwork were tested. The bricks used were Mellowed Red Sovereign Stock supplied by Wienerberger. The mortar samples were prepared based on BS PD 6678 [12]. The compressive strength class of the mortar was M6 and the cement: sand ratio was 155:710 (mixed by mass). The mortar was cast as cubes and cured for 28 days and then cored into cylinders for later laboratory tests. The dimensions of the cylinders were 37mm diameter
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and 74mm height. Cylinders of brick were also prepared to the same specifications. In order to test the brickwork lining as a structure, brickwork beams were designed and prepared for testing according to BS EN 1052-2 [13]. The dimensions of the brickwork beams were: 89025095 mm (length height width). The test materials are shown in Figure 1. a) b)

c)

Figure 1: Test material a) brick, b) mortar and c) brickwork beam. Test method and Experiment setup The weathering tests involved first immersing the samples in water baths of varying chemical composition and then performing laboratory tests at different time intervals. The immersion process was used to replicate the environmental conditions which cause degradation of shaft/fill/capping materials. Laboratory tests were used to evaluate the weathering effects on mechanical parameters of the test materials. The test samples were placed into potable water, mine water and an aggressive acidic solution for about one year. Four phases of laboratory tests were conducted during this time. Phase 0 tested the initial material properties of the samples. Every 16 weeks,degradation of the structural parameters of the test materials was evaluated by uniaxial compressive strength tests and four point bending tests. Immersion The setup of the immersion process is shown in Figure 2. The expected concentration of the main chemical components and PH of the mine water and aggressive acidic solutions are given in Table 1. The properties of the mine water were based on data obtained from the RFCS PRESIDENCE project report (RFCR-CT-2007-00004) [14]. The aggressive acidic solution was used to accelerate the weathering process in order to gain insight into the longerterm weathered conditions of the materials. The PH and concentration of the solutions were kept as constant as possible during the tests by refreshing the solution every 3 weeks. The PH of the mine water and aggressive acidic solution was monitored during the tests by a PH meter. Water pumps were used in the containers to circulate the water to ensure uniform distribution of the chemicals in the solution.
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Laboratory testing The samples were tested at four stages throughout the weathering process (Phase 0 baseline test, followed by Phases 1 to 3 at approximately 16 week intervals). The uniaxial compressive strength test (UCS) was conducted to measure Youngs modulus () and compressive strength (c) of the cylinder samples and the four-point bending test (FPB) was used to measure the flexural strength of the brickwork beams. By comparing the results obtained from different phases, the water and time effects on the material were studied. The degradation of material properties with time and chemical attack were examined. The measured parameters of the material were then used in numerical models which were developed to further analyse the effect of weathering on overall brickwork stability. Table 1: Concentration of the main chemical components for the immersions
Mg mg/l 31 40 400 Na mg/l 15.7 14.5 724 Cl mg/l 13 12 600 SO4 mg/l 360 353 8182 PH 6.0 5.2 1.3

Mine water (PRESIDENCE report) Mine water (used in this study) Aggressive acidic solution

Brickwork beam

Mortar and brick cylinders

Figure 2: Immersion baths. Test results Uniaxial compressive test The uniaxial compressive test is arguably the most popular and fundamental method for rock testing. In this study, the cylindrical samples (brick and mortar as shown in Figure 1) were tested. The test machine and experiment set-up is shown in Figure 3. During the test, vertical load was applied on the samples and gradually increased until the samples failed. The loading rate for the test was 0.02mm/min. The load applied was measured by a load cell and the vertical deformation of the samples was measured by two linear variable differential transformers (LVDTs). The average results from two LVDTs at each side of the samples were used to calculate axial strain. For each material from each solution, 5 samples were
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tested. The test procedure followed the International Society for Rock Mechanics: testing measure [15].

a)

b)

LVDT

Load cell

Figure 3: Set-up of the uniaxial compressive test. The stress-strain relationship of the brick and mortar are shown in Figure 4. According to the results of Figure 4a/c/e, the stress-strain curves of brick do not show a clear trend when comparing Phase 0 through to Phase 3 for any of the immersion conditions (potable water, mine water, or aggressive acidic solution). The reason for this could be that the brick samples showed considerable variability in results at any given stage of testing (due to the variability of brick composition and build quality) and therefore it is difficult to distinguish the weathering effects on the samples. For Mortar (Figure 4b/d/f), the effect of both water and the acidic solutions is clear. It can be seen in Figure 4b/d that at Phase 3 (after 48 weeks), the stiffness (given by the slope of the curves within the initial linear range) of the mortar is clearly less than phase 0, 1 and 2 from both solutions. The maximum strength, however, does not appear to have been significantly affected during this time for these samples. The effect of the aggressive acidic water on the mortar is observed to be considerable in Figure 4f. A significant reduction of stiffness of the mortar samples from each phase is observed. At the onset of loading, the stiffness is noted to be very small (given by a shallow line in the stress-strain data). This is likely due to the fact that the acid attack opens many micro cracks in the samples (especially at the surface), making the surface of sample much weaker and resulting in a low overall stiffness. The inner, less weathered regions of the cores eventually have the effect of increasing the stiffness of the samples during tests. The overall effect of the varying degree of weathering is a bi-linear stiffness relationship. In Figure 4f, the Phase 3 results for the mortar in the aggressive acidic solution are not given because the material was deteriorated to a state that could not be tested. The strength and stiffness of the mortar at this stage had effectively reduced to zero. The results of UCS tests show that mortar is very sensitive to the acidic attack; a clear reduction of both strength and stiffness was observed. For the brick, taking into account the considerable variability of test results at a given phase of testing, there was no clear evidence of significant weathering taking place for the duration of the tests. Explorations of several mine shafts in the UK undertaken as part of this projectalso showed that the state of deterioration of the mortar was generally greater than that of the bricks (though evidence of considerable brick deterioration was also found). In general, the results indicate that in terms of the weathering process, the mortar is likely to be more susceptible to degradation and therefore play the dominant role in reducing the overall stability of mine shafts over time.
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(a ) 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0

Brick in potable water 15

(b )

Mortar in potable water

10

0. 005 Strain

0. 01

0. 015

0. 005 (d )

0. 01 Strain Mortar in mine water

0. 015

0. 02

(c ) Brick in mine water 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0 0. 005 Strain (e) Brick in aggressive acidic solution 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0 0. 005 Strain Phase 0 0. 01 0. 015 0 0 5 10 15 0. 01 0. 015 0 0 5 10 15

0. 005

0. 01 Strain

0. 015

0. 02

(f )Mortar in aggressive acidic solution

0. 005

0. 01 Strain Phase

0. 015

0. 02

Phase

Phase

Figure 4: UCS test results for brick and mortar. The UCS results for mortar also show that the Youngs modulus is more sensitive to acid attack when compared to compressive strength. This implies that large deformations may be observed in shaft linings prior to the initiation of a significant collapse. This may provide an important warning sign as to the deteriorated state of mine shaft. If left to deteriorate further, the results of the weathering tests illustrate that the strength of the mortar will eventually go to zero, which could have serious consequences to the overall shaft stability. Four point bending test The four-point bending test (FPBT) was conducted to determine the degradation of flexural strength of brickwork. The test was conducted based on BS EN1052-2 [13] and is illustrated in Figure5. To prevent collapse of the sample due to their own self-weight, the samples were
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oriented vertically and the loading force was applied horizontally, as suggested by the test standard. During the test, the horizontal force was increased gradually (at a constant rate 0.05 kN/second) until the test sample failed. Four steel bearings were used to distribute the load onto the samples. A load cell was used to measure the applied force and an LVDT was used to measure the displacement at the centre of the beam. Two layers of thin PTFE sheet were placed at the bottom of the samples to provide a near-frictionless boundary condition.

Brickwall

Figure 5: Set-up of the four-point bending test. Based on the maximum force and the dimensions of the brick samples, the flexural strength of the brickwork beams can be calculated using Equation 1 [13].
f = 3, ( ) 2 (1)

where , is the maximum load applied to the specimen, is the spacing of the outer bearings, is the spacing of the inner bearings, is the height of the specimen perpendicular to the direction of span, and is the width of a masonry unit. Results from the four-point bending tests of the brickwork at the 4 test phases for the potable water and aggressive acidic solutions are shown in Figure 6. At each phase, 3 samples were tested from each solution and the average strength was calculated. Figure 6b shows that no clear trend of flexural strength reduction of the brickwork beams due to weathering was found. A considerable amount of variability in the force displacement relationships was observed (Figure 6a). The bi-linear trend of stiffness noted for the UCS tests of the mortar is also evident in the force-displacement data in Figure 6a, especially for the Phases 1, 2, and 3 tests. This probably indicates an intermediate degree of weathering of the samples; the brickwork beams are fairly large and therefore the bulk of the internal material may not have been exposed to high degrees of weathering. There is also considerable variability in results at a given phase of testing, making it difficult to discern trends in results from one phase to the next.

6 5

(a)

Force [kN]

4 3 2 1 0

3 4 displacment [mm]

5 x 10

6
-3

Phase 0

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3 (b)

Flexural strength [N/mm2]

1.5 1 0.5 0 Phase 0 Phase 1 Potable water Aggressive acidic solution Phase 2 Phase 3

Figure 6: Four-point bending test results (a) force versus displacement; (b) flexural strength.

Numerical modelling of the four-point bending test

A macro-modelling approach [8] was adopted for the numerical modelling in order to be able to scale the brickwork lining model up to the size of a real shaft lining. In this method, the composite brickwork material is modelled as a uniform material. Adopting a micro-modelling approach in which each brick and mortar element is modelled individually is very computationally expensive and would prohibit the modelling of full-scale shafts. The objective of this modelling exercise was therefore to determine a set of equivalent uniform material properties that could be used effectively to replicate the behaviour of the composite brickwork beams. Further work will consider a full-scale mine shaft and the effect of reducing the mechanical properties of the lining (to simulate weathering) on overall stability. Figure 7b shows the FLAC-3D model that was built to simulate the four point bending tests. The boundary conditions and loading were designed to match the experimental conditions. In order to obtain the equivalent uniform material properties, the constitutive Strain-Softening (SS) model was used for the uniform brickwork material in the 3D model. This constitutive model is based on the Mohr-Coulomb model in which the cohesion, friction angle and tensile strength are assumed to remain constant. In the SS model, these strength properties may soften (reduce) after the onset of plastic yield.

Figure 7: (a)Flexural strength test of brickwork beam (BS EN 1052-2); (b) FLAC-3D model of the brickwork beam Figure 8a shows a comparison between results obtained from the 3 experimental tests (labelled LabFPBT-#) and the numerical simulations. The methodology adopted to obtain the equivalent material properties for brickwork was to adjust the material properties to make the force-deflection curve from the numerical model match that of the laboratory tests. Based on the results of a parametric study, it was found that the stiffness and tensile strength had the dominating effect on the deformation of the beam. The values of cohesion and friction angle were therefore kept the same as those of brick (Table 2). An upper and lower bound of equivalent material properties for brickwork was found based on the experimental data. Figure 8a shows that the match between the numerical results and the experimental data is good. The detailed equivalent material properties (upper bound and lower bound) are shown in Table 2 and Figure 8b. Note that friction and cohesion values reported in Table 2 are based on a series of triaxial tests performed on the brick cores at Phase 0 (not reported here) and that the tensile strength was taken as 1/10th the measured UCS.

Figure 8:(a) Comparison of experimental and numerical FPBT results, (b) strain-softening model values of tensile strength.
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Table 2: Brickwork properties used in numerical models.

Material Youngs Poissons Cohesion modulus ratio (kg/m3) (GPa) (MPa) 1960 2.96 0.15 2.39 1960 1.56 0.15 2.39 1960 1.36 0.15 2.39 Density Friction angle (degrees) 46 46 46 Tensile strength (MPa) 1.18 See Figure 8b See Figure 8b

Brick Upper bound model Lower bound model

Conclusions
A programme of weathering tests was undertaken to study the effect of harsh environmental conditions that are characteristic of flooded mine shafts on the mechanical properties of brickwork lining constituent elements, namely brick and mortar. Three different immersion solutions were used: potable water, mine water and an aggressive acidic solution. Four phases of laboratory tests (with a fixed time interval of 16 weeks) were conducted to assess the degradation of the mechanical properties of the materials. Results from UCS tests on brick did not show conclusive trends of deterioration over time. The effects of weathering on brick were difficult to discern due to the inherent variability in the brick material. However, the weathering process had a pronounced effect on the mortar. A considerable decrease in the stiffness and strength of mortar samples was measured. For mortar, the Youngs modulus was found to be more sensitive than compressive strength to acid attack. Variable degrees of weathering resulted in a bi-linear trend of mortar stiffness during loading. The results of four-point bending tests on brickwork beams did not show a clear trend of degradation of flexural strength due to weathering. The results of the tests showed a considerable degree of variability which made it difficult to make conclusions regarding the weathering effects on strength. The load-deflection response did show an effect of weathering and, as for the mortar samples, showed a bi-linear trend which may indicate a partial degree of weathering. A FLAC-3D model was built to simulate the four-point bending test. A set of equivalent uniform material properties was determined which gave a reasonable prediction of the loaddeflection behaviour of the composite brickwork beams tested in the lab. The advantage of the uniform material mesh is that it can be effectively scaled up to model full-sized shaft linings without incurring impractical model run times. The effect of weathering on mine shaft stability will be explored using this numerical model in a future paper.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the European Commission Research Programme of the Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS). The work described in this paper was undertaken as part of the Mine Shafts: Improving Security and New Tools for the Evaluation of Risks (MISSTER) project, funded by the RFCS.

References
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