Rock Mech. Rock Engng. (2007) 40 (5), 519524 DOI 10.

1007/s00603-006-0094-7 Printed in The Netherlands

Technical Note A Practical Problem with Threaded Rebar Bolts in Reinforcing Largely Deformed Rock Masses
By

C. C. Li
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway Received August 23, 2005; accepted April 24, 2006 Published online June 16, 2006 # Springer-Verlag 2006

Keywords: Bolt failure, rebar bolt, rock reinforcement, rock support.

1. Introduction Rebar bolt is probably the most commonly used rock reinforcement element in both mining and civil engineering applications. The most commonly seen rebar bolt is an endthreaded steel bar that is fully grouted in borehole with cement or resin, Fig. 1. A fullygrouted rebar bolt is characterised by its high bond between the bolt and the grout because of the ribs on the cylindrical surface of the bar. Rebar bolts are installed without pretension. The load a rebar provides to the rock is developed afterwards when it is subjected to rock deformation. After excavation, the country rock moves towards the opening with the largest deformation at the free surface of the opening. Thus, it is at the surface of the opening where the bolt is most loaded. On the other hand, the weakest part of a rebar bolt is its thread which is located exactly at the surface of the opening. It is often seen in the eld that rebar bolts fail at the thread in case of occurrence of large rock deformation, for instance in a weak rock mass subjected to high ground pressure. In this technical note, failure of rebar bolts observed in the eld is presented rst. Then, the loading condition of the bolt is examined for the purpose of showing how much the thread reduces the loading capacity of the bolt. The aim is to point out the weakness of rebar bolts so that one is aware of the direction to enhance the load-bearing capacity of rebar bolts when needed. 2. Observations of Bolt Failure A metallic mine in Sweden is currently conducting its mining activities at a depth of about 1000 m under the surface of the ground. The ground pressure at that depth is

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Fig. 1. A sketch illustrating a threaded rebar bolt cement-grouted in a borehole

quite high and the rock is chlorite-rich and weak. Therefore, rock deformation in mine stopes is large. The wall-to-wall convergence in a 7 m wide stope often reaches more than ten centimetres in a short period after excavation. The mine uses threaded rebar bolts for rock reinforcement. The bolts are fully grouted in boreholes with cement mortar. It was observed in the stopes that a number of bolts failed at the thread and lost their support capacity. Figure 2 shows two of the rebar bolts installed in a mine stope. These two photographs show how a bolt reacts to ground pressure. The rock moves towards the opening under the ground pressure. The face plate of the bolt tends to prevent the rock movement, resulting in a load on the face plate, as seen in Fig. 2a. The load on the face plate is then transferred to the bolt through the nut and the thread. If the bolt is properly grouted, the load in the bolt would become smaller towards the far-end of the bolt because of the bond between the bolt and the grout (Li and

Fig. 2. Rebar bolts in situ. a A heavily loaded rebar bolt, b a rebar bolt failed at the thread and sunk into the rock

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Fig. 3. Failure modes of 20 mm rebar bolts in situ. a Ductile failure, b brittle failure, c a rebar bolt subjected to brittle failure

Stillborg, 1999). It means that the bolt is subjected to the largest tensile load at the thread. The result is, in an extreme case, that the bolt breaks at the thread. Figure 2b shows such a case where the bolt broke at the thread and sank several centimetres into the rock. The surface support of this bolt was completely lost after failure. The nature of the bolt failure could be ductile or brittle, depending upon the loading condition the bolt is subjected to. Figure 3a shows a typical ductile failure of a rebar thread, in which the diameter of the thread became smaller than its original dimension. This is the so-called necking phenomenon, which indicates a ductile failure. The bolt was located in a place where large rock deformation occurred. The loading to the bolt was probably a progressive process, that is, the load on the face plate of the bolt was increasing with rock deformation until the bolt failed. Figure 3b shows a thread of bolt that was subjected to brittle failure. The brittle failure is characterised by a clean failure plane without occurrence of the necking phenomenon. With this type of failure, the bolt does not sink into the rock after failure, as shown in Figure 3c. This implies that the bolt is subjected to a negligible rock deformation when it undergoes failure. It was observed in the eld that bolts that were subjected to this type of failure were usually located in places close to work faces. It is very possible that they failed due to dynamic loading induced by blasting at the work faces.

3. Analysis As mentioned previously, a rebar bolt is not loaded uniformly along its length owing to its anchoring mechanism. The section close to the free surface of an opening is most loaded and the bolt usually fails at the thread when the load is large enough. The ultimate load of a rebar, given in the specication of the product, usually refers to the

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Table 1. Mechanical properties of a few rebar bolts (Stjern, 1995)

Rebar bolt stra round bar stra rebar stra rebar stra CT-bolt stra CT-bolt stra CT-bolt Dywidag rebar Gasta rebar SCS threaded rebar SCS headed rebar Ares rebar DSI rebar

Diameter (mm) 20 19 25 19 20 22 20 20 20 20 20 20

Yielding load Py (kN) 65 120 220 120 140 230 157 140 113 141 141 120

Ultimate load Pult (kN) 100 150 250 150 170 290 173 173 179 162 220 180

Py=Pult (%) 65 80 88 80 82 79 90 81 63 87 64 67

Ultimate elongation (%) 8 6 8 6 13 15 20 10

steel bar of the bolt, but not to the thread. The thread and the steel bar may be at different stages of deformation when the thread undergoes failure. A closer look at this problem would help one to have a better understanding of the behaviour of a rebar bolt under loading. Rebar is made of carbon steel. The mechanical behaviour of carbon steel is characterised by its yielding load, ultimate tensile load and the ultimate elongation. The typical values of the mechanical parameters for a few commercial rebar bolts are listed in Table 1. The yielding load of a rebar bolt is in a range from 63 to 90% of its ultimate load, and the ultimate elongation is from 6 to 20%. The load-elongation behaviour of a steel bar is shown in Fig. 4. The elongation of the bar linearly increases with the tensile load until the load reaches the yielding limit of the steel. The load remains more or less at the yielding level for a certain elongation, and then increases again with increasing in elongation. This is the so-called hardening of the material. The bar fails at its ultimate elongation. The stress-strain

Fig. 4. Typical load-elongation curves of the solid bar and the thread of a rebar bolt. Py yielding load, Pult ultimate load

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Fig. 5. A sketch of headed rebar bolt

curve of the material will be the same regardless of the diameter of the bar, but the load-elongation curve will depend upon the diameter. Conventional 20 mm rebar bolts, for instance, have a nominal diameter of 20 mm for the solid bar, while the inner diameter of the thread (M20) at the end is only about 17.6 mm. The cross section area of the thread is about 75% of the cross section area of the solid bar. The ultimate load of the thread, therefore, is only 75% of the solid bar for the 20 mm rebar bolts. A lower ultimate load in the thread section results in the thread undergoing yielding and even failure earlier than the solid bar does. As shown in Fig. 4, the solid bar of a bolt might be still under elastic deformation or just get into the stage of hardening when the ultimate load of the thread is reached. Thus, the rock deformation is mainly balanced by the elongation of the thread rather than the steel bar. It is seen from the above discussion that the load-bearing capacity of a threaded rebar is reduced about 25% compared to the solid bar of the bolt. In other words, a threaded rebar with a nominal ultimate load of 200 kN would actually only be able to carry a load of 150 kN because of the thread. The key to enhance the load-bearing capacity of rebar bolts is to overcome the weakness of the thread. One measure to achieve this is to enlarge the thread so that its inner diameter is at least equal to the diameter of the solid bar. Another measure is to get rid of the thread and use headed rebar bolts, as shown in Fig. 5. A headed rebar bolt is both stronger and stiffer than a threaded rebar. Headed rebar bolts were used in many mines in Sweden until the 1970s, but today they have been completely substituted by threaded rebar bolts. This may be due to the consideration of manufacture cost and other versatile uses of the threaded rebar bolts in practice. In cases where the load-bearing capacity is of great concern, headed rebars or rebars with enlarged thread may be considered. The above analysis is limited to rebar bolts installed in weak rocks where rock deformation is usually continuously distributed with its maximum at the free surface of the opening. 4. Concluding Remarks Rebar bolts usually fail at the thread in largely deformed rock masses. The thread reduces the load-bearing capacity by about 25% for a conventional 20 mm rebar bolt.

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In case that the load-bearing capacity is of concern, an enlarged thread or headed rebar bolts can be considered as a substitute of the conventional rebar bolt.

References
Li, C., Stillborg, B. (1999): Analytical models for rock bolts. Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci. 36(8), 10131029. Stjern, G. (1995): Practical performance of rock bolts. Doctoral thesis, University of Trondheim, Norway. Authors address: Prof. Dr. C. Chunlin Li, Department of Geology and Mineral Resources Engineering, University of Trondheim, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway; e-mail: charlie.c.li@ ntnu.no