Das 2020

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Underground Space xxx (xxxx) xxx
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Effect of rock bolt support mechanism on tunnel deformation in

jointed rockmass: A numerical approach
Ratan Das a,⇑, Trilok Nath Singh b
a
Department of Geology, Rajiv Gandhi University, Arunachal Pradesh 791112, India
b
Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India
Received 5 November 2019; received in revised form 7 April 2020; accepted 4 June 2020
Abstract
A parametric study was conducted to determine the influence of different bolt parameters (bolt length and diameter) on the maximum
induced boundary displacements in jointed rockmass, using a numerical method based on finite element code. Three different types of
jointed systems (Type A, Type B, and Type C) were considered and analyzed. Type A displays normal joint closure, Type B demonstrates
a combination of normal and shear joint closure, and in Type C, the majority of the joint is loaded in shear condition. The ground sur-
face settlement profiles for these three joint systems, under unsupported conditions, are presented in this work. For the same rockmass
properties, the cases in Type A and Type B exhibit the maximum and minimum settlement, respectively. For each joint type, the effect of
variable bolt parameters on the tunnel boundary is studied in terms of the total displacement. The simulation results confirm that an
increase in the bolt length does not significantly reduce the boundary displacement, whereas an increase in the bolt diameter substantially
reduces the tunnel boundary displacement.
Keywords: Jointed rockmass; Tunnel deformation; Rock bolt; FEM
1 Introduction ary. In the case of competent rock mass having a relatively

low value of in situ stress magnitudes, the disturbed zone
Many times jointed rockmasses are encountered during may not be created and the rock mass may behave like
underground excavation. There are severe consequences of an elastic material (Goel et al., 2007).
face failure, delay in progress, and damage to surface struc- The stability of an underground tunnel is affected by
tures when the construction is conducted at a shallow several factors, such as rock mass properties, in situ stres-
ground level (Das, Sirdesai, et al., 2017; Dias, 2011). There- ses, geological conditions, blasting-induced dynamic load-
fore, complications related to tunnel face stability and their ing, and support systems. Bolts strengthen the rock mass
accurate prevention through a suitable support system is a by restricting the distortion in the rockmass. The load is
vital focus in the field of underground construction. It is generally transferred from the bolt to the host rock mass
also essential to bound the ground motion ahead of the in shear. The nature of load transfer is governed by the
tunnel face because the underground excavation leads to type of bolting system, properties of the cement grout
rearrangement of stresses whose direction and magnitude material, and competency of the rock neighboring the bolt.
depend on the pre-excavated in situ stress and shape of Therefore, to improve the bolting design, it is necessary to
excavation. These redistributed stresses create a disturbed have a good understanding of the behavior of rock bolts in
zone of failed rock blocks around the excavation bound- deformed jointed rock masses. The total response of the
rockmass is primarily governed by two components of
⇑ Corresponding author.
the rockmass, i.e., individual intact rock properties and
E-mail address: ratandasdjn91@gmail.com (R. Das). rock joint properties (Singh et al., 2002).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.undsp.2020.06.001
2467-9674/Ó 2020 Tongji University. Publishing Services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co. Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Please cite this article as: R. Das and T. N. Singh, Effect of rock bolt support mechanism on tunnel deformation in jointed rockmass: A numerical
approach, Underground Space, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.undsp.2020.06.001
2 R. Das, T.N. Singh / Underground Space xxx (xxxx) xxx
During tunnel excavation, two types of deformation are majority of the joints are loaded under shear mode. The
generally recognized: (1) Local instabilities, i.e., tunnel face failure phenomena of jointed rock blocks are complex
failure, sudden roof collapse and (2) extreme tunnel squeez- and involve a combination of more than one failure
ing or convergence, which reduces the initial tunnel diame- mechanism.
ter (Kontogiann et al., 2004). It is well known that rock The drilling and blasting method (DBM) is the most
joints play a pivotal role in the deformational behavior of commonly used technique for rock tunnel excavation, but
a rock mass because they offer weakness and deformability it creates a network of blast-induced cracks. These
to the rock mass. To quantify the joint strength, the terms blasting-induced damage zones, especially in the case of
joint normal stiffness (Kn) and shear stiffness (Ks) are used jointed or blocky rockmasses, create stability problems
in rock engineering. As reported by Barton (1986), the inside tunnels. It is well known that rock is a heterogeneous
strength and stiffness are primarily stress-dependent material that is very rarely considered in blast design.
parameters and may disappear under tension. The complex Almost all rocks have a number of visible discontinuities
rockmass deformation phenomenon is easily understood (weakest planes in the rockmass), and these discontinuities
by separating the individual components of deformation, influence the blasting outcomes. The role played by these
that is, (1) intact rock (elastic or pseudo-elastic) component inherent rock features in creating a damage zone is impor-
separated by the joints, (2) joint normal stress component, tant for minimizing blast damage (Singh & Xavier, 2005).
and (3) joint shear stress component. Rockmass deforma- Ramulu et al. (2009) reported that the ‘‘overbreak zone”
tion modulus related data are required for the design of symbolizes the zone beyond the minimum quarry line of
almost all tunnelling projects. the designed boundary from where rock blocks completely
Three types of load–deformation curves for the jointed separate from the rock mass. According to Saiang and
rockmass condition are present in literature. Rockmasses Nordlund (2009), the ‘‘damage zone” starts from the outer
consisting of horizontally bedded sedimentary rock display periphery of the overbreak zone. Here, the rockmass prop-
Type A behavior (concave upward). Joints that are parallel erties undergo irreversible changes due to the presence of a
to rock strata are subjected to normal closure, where the network of microcracks and fractures formed due to blast-
shear component is inactive and lateral expansion is ing. Finally, the ‘‘disturbed zone” extends immediately from
insignificant (Fig. 1). Type B curve illustrates the combina- the damage zone boundary. In this zone, the variations in
tion of normal and shear closure of joints. Type C illus- the rockmass properties are reversible, and only the
trates the convex load-deformation trend, where the hydraulic permeability and stress change dominate
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of load-deformation behavior for rock masses with different magnitudes of joint shear (S) and normal deformation (N)
components (modified after (Barton, 1986)).
R. Das, T.N. Singh / Underground Space xxx (xxxx) xxx 3
(Palmström & Singh, 2001; Shen & Barton, 1997). The tem (Types A, B, and C) is depicted in Fig. 2. Before the
overbreak zone and the damage zone significantly affect mesh is generated, the boundaries are first discretized. This
the construction cost, time, and stability of the tunnel. process involves the subdivision of boundary line segments
Rock bolt supports are the most productive and cost- into discretizations, which form the framework of the finite
effective methods for controlling rock mass disasters in element mesh. After discretizing, a finite element mesh can
underground construction (Li et al., 2015; Wang, Song, be generated. The mesh is based on the discretization of the
et al., 2018). The basic design principle of rock bolt support boundaries. To model the rockmass, three-nodded triangu-
systems is to assist the rock mass to support itself lar elements were used to discretize the model. The
(Bieniawski & Balkeman, 1984). Rock bolt is generally triangular-shaped finite element is simple to develop and
installed in the jointed and fractured rock mass and is is very useful for modeling uneven, unequal, and irregular
exposed to an amalgamation of bending, axial, and shear boundaries. According to Carroll (1998), almost any phys-
loads based on the relative positioning of the bolt and ical outline or figure can be discretized with these three-
the loading direction. It is well known that the overall cornered wedge-shaped finite elements, although individual
strength of a jointed rock mass can be enhanced by the triangular elements may be different in shape and size. For
addition of completely grouted rock bolts (Forbes et al., meshing, a graded type of mesh with a 0.1 gradation factor
2017). was used. Each element is formed on a connection with the
The objective of this study is to analyze the rock bolt nodes. The interpolation functions for the approximation
support mechanism on tunnel boundary deformation of field variables at the elemental level depend on the type
under three different jointed rockmass conditions. First, element associated with the number of nodes. As reported
we developed and designed numerical models for the by Brown (1981), an area double or triple the diameter of
jointed rockmasses (Type A, Type B, and Type C). Second, the opening is mostly affected in terms of stress rearrange-
unsupported deformations and stress distributions were ment and consequential strain. Hence, to diminish the
calculated. Finally, a mathematical relationship was effect of boundary conditions on the deformational behav-
obtained between the rockbolt-dimensional feature and ior of the tunnel, an outer boundary, which was triple the
the total reduced displacement. diameter of the tunnel was fabricated. Fixed restraints were
applied to the sidewall and bottom portion of the model
2 Numerical analysis (i.e., no movement in the X and Y directions), while at
the top boundary, no restraints were applied and it was
In this research, the effect of rock bolt support on the set free.
tunnel deformation mechanism in jointed rockmasses is The joint network for all three joint systems used in the
studied. A finite element numerical method (FEM) was numerical simulation is presented in Table 1.
applied to three different joint systems to study the jointed The generalized Hoek and Brown Failure Criterion
rockmass deformation behavior around the tunnel after (Hoek et al., 2002) for rock mass is used, which is expressed
excavation. The deformation and ground settlement are as
analyzed in terms of the total displacement, both in the 0 a
unsupported and supported conditions. Only the rock bolt 0 0 0 r3
r 1 ¼ r 3 þ r ci mb 0 þ s ; ð1Þ
support is used in this research to evaluate the effect of the r ci
bolt length and diameter on the final reduced displacement
0 0
values. The effect in terms of the total displacement is mea- where r1 and r3 are the major and minor effective principal
0
sured by varying the bolt length and diameter separately. stress respectively, rci is the uniaxial compressive strength
FEM is the most well-known and powerful numerical of intact rock, and mb is the reduced value of material con-
tool to study, predict, and model the behavior of material, stant mi. Here, mb can be calculated according to the fol-
structure, fluid, and events. The latest development in this lowing equation:
method provides strong support for the behavioral study of
underground structures under diverse geoenvironmental GSI 100
mb ¼ mi exp ; ð2Þ
conditions (Das, Singh, et al., 2017). Several researchers 28 14D
have recommended the use of FEM analysis for tunnel sta-
where mi is the Hoek–Brown rock material constant, which
bility, ground settlement, and the nature of failure detected
is obtained from triaxial tests on rock cores, and GSI is the
in both continuum and discontinuum rock masses. For this
geological strength index.
purpose, 2D finite element numerical analysis software
In Eqs. (3) and (4), s and a are constants for the rock
‘‘Phase2 v.8.0” was used (Rocscience Inc., 2016a).
mass and are obtained by the following equations:
2.1 Model geometry and boundary condition GSI 100
s ¼ exp ; ð3Þ
9 3D
The modeled geometry of the tunnel displaying the
dimensions of the horseshoe-shaped tunnel (height 1 1
a ¼ þ eGSI=15 e20=3 ; ð4Þ
H = 10.50 m, width B = 12.50 m), boundary, and joint sys- 2 6
Fig. 2. Tunnel model geometry (in m) for different joint systems (i.e., Types A, B, and C).
where D is the disturbance factor that depends on whether Mohr-Coulomb Slip Criterion is used to model the
the rock mass has been subjected to blast damage and joints in the rockmass. The parameters used are the cohe-
stress relaxation, and it varies from 0 to 1. The geometrical sion, friction angle, tensile strength, joint shear stiffness,
properties of the three different joint systems (i.e. for Type and joint normal stiffness.
A, Type B, and Type C) are presented in Table 1.
s ¼ rn tan ur þ c ð5Þ
2.2 Material properties where s is the shear stress, rn is the normal stress, ur is the
effective basic or residual friction angle of joint, and c is the
The geomechanical properties of the rock and joints cohesion.
used in the numerical simulation are described in Tables The term ‘‘discontinuity” refers to any mechanical break
2 and 3. The gravitational load was applied to the model, in a rock mass with negligible tensile strength and cohe-
and the actual ground surface was selected. The field stress sion. Joint deformability can be described by the character-
ratio k is taken as 1. istics of the stress–deformation curves. Goodman et al.
Table 1
Joint model description.
Joint system Joint model Joint orientation Joint spacing/m Distribution
Type A Cross joint J1 0° 1 Normal
J2 90° 1 Normal
#
Type B Voronoi J1 Density: 0.3 Regularity: Medium regular
Type C Cross joint J1 45° 1 Normal
J2 45° 1 Normal
Note: #Density represents the number of Voronoi cell/area.
Table 2 the actual ground surface of the model (Rocscience Inc.,

Intact rock and rockmass properties of maroon sandstone used in the 2016b). The lithostatic pressure existed in the subsurface
numerical model (Das, Singh, et al. 2017).
of the earth due to the weight of the soil and rock above.
Parameters Symbol Unit Value This pressure increases with depth. Construction of the
0
Intact uniaxial compressive strength rci MPa 53 underground tunnel intercepts the flow of these compres-
Young’s modulus Ei GPa 19.7 sive forces and removes the support from the material
Poisson’s ratio m – 0.32
Material constant mi – 17
above. Hence, a zone of tension stress is created above
Density q kg/m3 2650 the roof of the tunnel. Figure 4 displays the distribution
Geological strength index GSI – 55 of the major principal stresses (numerically determined)
Rock mass rating RMR – 40–60 oriented in the tangential directions after the excavation.
The failure zone extends up to 3.7 m, 2.5 m, and 3 m for
Types A, B, and C joint conditions, respectively. Beyond
Table 3
that depth, the rock is still intact, but the tangential stress
Joints properties (adopted from (Vergara et. al., 2016)).
(TS) is somewhat elevated, depending on the distance from
Joint Parameters Symbol Unit Value (J1 & J2)
the tunnel wall. Based on the graphs derived from the
Normal stiffness Kn MPa/m 3500 numerical simulation shown in Fig. 4, the TS reaches its
Shear stiffness Ks MPa/m 1300
maximum at 0 m, 1 m, and 3.1 m from the tunnel wall
Tensile strength rt MPa 0
Friction angle / ° 33 for Types A, B, and C, respectively, and then gradually
Cohesion c MPa 0 drops to the in situ stress levels in locations far away from
the tunnel. As reported by Li (2017), the rock portion
(1968) introduced the terms ‘‘normal stiffness” (Kn) and within which the tangential stress is significantly elevated
‘‘shear stiffness” (Ks) to describe the following equations: carries the majority of the earth’s lithostatic pressure and
rn forms a protection shield, that is, a pressure arch, around
Kn ¼ ; ð6Þ the tunnel.
Vj
It is evident from the numerical simulation that a pres-
s
Ks ¼ ; ð7Þ sure arch exists at a certain depth of the rock surrounding
dh
the underground tunnel where the tangential stresses are
where Vj is the normal displacements, and dh is the shear significantly high. This is called the natural pressure arch.
displacement. In our study, the length of the natural pressure arch is dif-
ferent for the three different joint conditions. For Type A,
3 Results and discussion it exists just near the tunnel boundary, whereas for Types B
and C conditions, the natural pressure arch forms at a dis-
3.1 Ground settlement tance of 1 m and 3.1 m from the tunnel boundary,
respectively.
Analysis is performed on the ground settlement profile
after the excavation, and the result suggests that the max-
imum and minimum ground settlement occurs in the Type 3.3 Unsupported tunnel boundary deformation
A (0.0123 m) and Type B (0.0095 m) joint systems, respec-
tively. In the first case, i.e., the Type A joint system, the The boundary deformation in the unsupported tunnel is
loosened rock block falls due to the highly steep near- different for all three cases and several different failure pat-
vertical cross-cutting joints. This leads to subsidence in terns take place simultaneously. The condition in Type A
the overburden rockmass. The Type C joint system exhibits demonstrates maximum deformation in crown corners. It
an intermediate settlement. The maximum settlement in the is dominated by major gravity-induced rock block failure
Type B and Type C joint systems is reduced by 22.76% and along the steepest joint planes (90° cross joint sets). Here,
14.63%, respectively, with respect to the case of the Type A the initial sliding leads to complex failure. In Type B, case
joint system (Fig. 3). The results of the numerical simula- two failure patterns occur simultaneously, i.e., roof fall and
tions were validated with a simpler closed-form solution side wall failure. A toppling failure mechanism is also
of an ideal situation, such as total vertical stress at a partic- observed from the right side wall. In the Type C joint sys-
ular depth from the surface. tem, only one failure pattern dominates, i.e., overbreak due
to favorable joint sets. The boundary of the tunnel in the
3.2 Natural pressure arch Type C case can be identified as a wedge-shaped failure
(Fig. 5). When the rock joints are open, it is an indication
The failure zone surrounding the tunnel opening was of the low in situ stress in the rockmass. Here, the job of
numerically simulated, where the rock mass was subjected the applied support system is to prevent the falling of rock
to gravity field stresses. The gravity field stress is typically blocks under the action of gravity. The load on rock bolts
used for near-surface excavations, where the initial vertical that is used to stabilize these vulnerable and loosened rock
stress at a given point is calculated using the depth below blocks in the roof is the deadload force of the block, and as
Fig. 3. (a) Ground surface distance above tunnel vs. ground settlement, (b) joint system vs. maximum settlement.
suggested by Li (2017), the number of bolts required (Nbolt) of the tunnel, ESR is the excavation support ratio, and S is
can be approximated as the span of the tunnel (B).
Wg If the failure region is limited to a relatively shallow
N bolt ¼ F S ; ð8Þ depth, then the bolt length should be at least 1 m longer
P ult
than the depth of the failure zone, that is,
where FS is the factor of safety, W is the deadload force of
BL d f þ 1; ð17Þ
block, g is the Acceleration due to gravity, and Pult if the
ultimate load of rock bolt. where df is the depth of the failure zone.
In the case of the fully grouted rock bolts, the embed- The bolt length is calculated based on the above-
ment length of the bolts in the stable formation must be mentioned equations and is observed to vary between 3
at least 1 m. The FS of the rock bolt is defined as and 7 m for the present tunnel geometry (considering
Load capacity of the bolts ESR = 1.1, for road and railway tunnels (Barton et al.,
FS ¼ : ð9Þ 1974)). Hence, to observe the effect of the bolt length on
Total load on the bolts
the tunnel boundary deformation, a series of bolts with
In Fig. 5, it is evident that owing to the cross-cutting variable length and a constant bolt diameter (on the side
joint system in Type C, there are wedge-shaped rock blocks walls and crown portion) were installed at a spacing of
formed at the tunnel crown, which fall under the gravita- 1 m. The support system is based on the convergence-
tional force. In this situation, an overbreak zone is created confinement method (CCM). For more details on the
in the roof. To support this zone, the strength of the sup- CCM, one can refer to (Dias, 2011; Hoek et al., 2008;
porting structure (like rock bolts) should have FS > 1, Vlachopoulos & Diederichs, 2009). The bolt properties
i.e., the load applied to a supporting structure should not used in the numerical simulation are presented in Table 5.
be more than the strength of the structure. This principle The bolts pass through the elements in the mesh, and
of structural mechanics is also valid for ground structures, they are modeled by a single or series of one-dimensional
wherein the total load on the construction structures is usu- elements. The end anchored rock bolt is represented by a
ally known. In shallow underground construction, this one-dimensional deformable element. The end anchored
principle is valid because the extreme load on the rock sup- bolt in Phase2 behaves as a single element. Interaction with
port system is the dead load force of relaxed rock blocks. the finite element mesh is through the endpoints only. The
Figure 6 displays the tunnel boundary deformation plot axial force F is calculated from the axial displacement as
along the tunnel periphery under unsupported condition follows:
for all the three cases.
F ¼ K b Du ð18Þ
3.4 Comparison of bolt length on tunnel deformation where Kb represents the bolt stiffness and Du denotes the
relative displacement between the two anchorage points,
Determination of the optimal roof bolt length is very which is Du = u1 u2. Failure of an end anchored rock
difficult and it depends on the applied support mechanism bolt occurs owing to the tensile yielding of the bolt mate-
(Barton et al., 1974; Li, 2017; Moyo & Stacey, 2012). Some rial. Therefore, bolt failure is controlled by the yield
of the empirical thumb rules that have been proposed by strength (Fyield).
various researchers are presented in Table 4. Where BL is Rock bolt deformation and failure modes respond to
the bolt length, B is the width of the tunnel, H is the height complex mechanisms involving shear, tension, and torsion
Fig. 4. Major principal stress distribution in the tunnel surrounding rock (Types A, B, and C, respectively). The crosses and circles mark the zone of shear
and tension rock failure, respectively.
Fig. 5. Unsupported tunnel boundary collapse mechanism in (a) Type A: sliding along steepest joint sets. Here, all the joint sets in the crown are involved
in the failure, (b) Type B: roof failure with sidewall failure, and (c) Type C: overbreak occurs at the crown along steepest joint sets.
in multiple locations of the rock bolt itself (Moyo & Stacey, ing the bolt length from 4 m to 7 m did not cause any major
2012). In the upper part near the surface, the rock mass change in the displacement values. He further suggested
structure is self-supporting, but close to the tunnel bound- that the greater bolt spacing that is compensated by longer
ary, the rock bolts support the failed suspended rock bolt lengths or higher pretension is not an effective design
blocks. Under these suspension conditions, axial loads measure. Wang, Xiao, et al. (2018) investigated the average
were generated in the rock bolts. It was also observed that bolt axial force obtained by the hybrid DEM analytical
the vertical downward movement of the rock blocks creates model and reported that an increase in the number of bolts
axial loading of the bolts. The corner crown failed block contributed to a significant reduction in the rock breakage
generates a combination of both axial and shear loading region, but an increase in the bolt length was not efficient in
on the bolt at several locations. In a highly jointed rock- the prevention of the rock damage zone after the length
mass, significant movement may always occur; hence, rock exceeded a certain value. They further suggested an effi-
bolts with good ductility and deformation quality allow cient bolt length range of BL = R0 to BL = 1.5R0 (R0 -
joint movement and rock fracture with failure. = tunnel radius) under the specific conditions of the study.
It has been observed that the effect of bolt length (varies
from 3 m to 7 m) on the final displacement values are neg-
ligible (Fig. 7). Boon et al. (2015) also studied the effect of 3.5 Effect of bolt diameter on tunnel deformation
bolt length on displacement using the distinct element
method (DEM) in a jointed rock mass. He varied the rock To study the effect of the rock bolt diameter on the tun-
bolt from 4 m to 7 m, and his results showed that increas- nel deformation, the bolt diameter was varied between
19 mm and 50 mm, keeping the bolt length constant
Fig. 6. Total displacement vs. tunnel boundary (data collection from the tunnel bottom left corner in the anticlockwise direction).
Table 4
Bolt length estimation equations proposed various researchers.
Reference Formula Equation number

Barton et al. (1974) BL ¼ 2 þ 0:15 B ESR
or H
m (10)
Barton et al. (1974) On roof, BL ¼ 0:40B
ESR m (11)
Barton et al. (1974) In wall, BL ¼ 0:35H
ESR m (12)
Lang and Bischoff (2003) BL ¼ S 2=3 m (13)
Bieniawski (1987) BL ¼ S3 m (14)
Li (2017) On roof, BL 0:5H m (15)
Li (2017) In wall, BL 0:5B m (16)
Table 5 The shear strength reduction option in Phase2 allows

Bolt properties. the automatic performance of a finite element stability
Bolt specification Unit Description/Values analysis, and computes a critical strength reduction factor
Bolt type – End anchored (SSR) for the model. The critical strength reduction factor
Bolt ength m Variable (3,5,7) is equivalent to the ‘‘safety factor” of the structure. The
Bolt diameter mm Variable (19,25,28,32,40,50) SSR method can be used with the generalized Hoek–Brown
Bolt modulus (E) MPa 200 000
Tensile capacity MN 0.1
material model in Phase2. The strength parameters are
Residual tensile capacity MN 0 reduced by a certain factor, and the finite element stress
Out of plane spacing m 1 analysis is computed. This process is repeated for different
values of the strength reduction factor (SRF) until the
model becomes unstable (the analysis results do not con-
(5 m). It was observed from the numerical simulation verge). This determines the critical strength reduction fac-
results that as the bolt diameter increases, the deformation tor (critical SRF) or safety factor of the modeled
significantly decreases in all three cases (Fig. 8). The rock structure. For Types A, B, and C conditions, the critical
bolts create a continuous zone of uniform compression in SRF calculated after support installation was 2.64, 2.99,
the jointed rock mass. A similar observation was previ- and 1.1, respectively. From the results, it can be concluded
ously made by Kilic et al. (2002). Three locations were that for the same bolt properties, the Voronoi joint model
selected at the tunnel periphery for all three cases, and (Type B) is the safest rockmass condition for tunnel con-
the reduced displacement values were plotted against the struction/design. Three equations have been proposed for
increasing bolt diameter (Fig. 9). The relation between the Types A, B, and C joint conditions based on the rela-
them is demonstrated in the graph. The dashed line repre- tionship between total displacement vs. bolt diameter
sents the linear fit trend lines for all three cases. depicted in Fig. 9.
Fig. 7. Comparison of displacement values in unsupported and supported (at varying bolt lengths) conditions along the tunnel boundary (for Type A joint
system).
Fig. 8. Effect of bolt diameter in all three cases: (a) Type A joint system, (b) Type B joint system, and (c) Type C joint system.
Fig. 9. Total displacement (in m) vs. rock bolt diameter (in mm).
4 Conclusion ment, there is limited interaction between the rock bolt

reinforcement and the rock mass at the excavation bound-
In this work, a parametric study was conducted to deter- ary. Plates, meshes, and lining will contribute further to
mine the influence of different bolt parameters (viz. Bolt such interactions.
length and diameter) on the maximum induced boundary
displacements in a jointed rockmass, using a numerical Declaration of Competing Interest
method based on finite element code. A series of numerical
simulation tests were performed to evaluate the perfor- The authors declare that they have no known competing
mance of the rock bolt and determine their response or financial interests or personal relationships that could have
resistance towards the deformation in the excavated and appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
unprotected tunnel periphery. Three different types of
jointed systems (Type A, Type B, and Type C) were ana- Acknowledgment
lyzed. Type A demonstrates normal joint closure, Type B
exhibits a combination of normal and shear joint closure, This research was conducted in Rock Science and Rock
and in Type C, the majority of the joint is loaded under Engineering (RSRE) Laboratory in the Department of
shear conditions. From the numerical analysis, the follow- Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.
ing conclusions can be drawn:
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Eﬀect of rock bolt support mechanism on tunnel deformation in

Keywords: Jointed rockmass; Tunnel deformation; Rock bolt; FEM

1 Introduction ary. In the case of competent rock mass having a relatively

Table 2 the actual ground surface of the model (Rocscience Inc.,

Table 5 The shear strength reduction option in Phase2 allows

4 Conclusion ment, there is limited interaction between the rock bolt

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