Stress Evolution in Roadway Rock Bolts During Mining in a Fully Mechanized Longwall Face, and an Evaluation of Rock Bolt Support Design

Rock bolts are widely used in coal mines throughout China. Approximately 8,000 km of roadways are excavated in coal mines every year in China, 80 % of which are supported by rock bolts. At present, the design of rock bolt support schemes is mainly based on analogies and experience from previous projects. In the present study, in order to evaluate the design of rock bolt support in roadways, several cross sections of a roadway were monitored for rock bolt stress during the roadway excavation and mining. The study results show that the stress in the rock bolts varied in the areas 20 m behind the excavating face and 30 m ahead of the mining face. For the rock bolts observed in this study, the max axial force was within the design limit of the bolts, thus the support design was shown to be acceptable. Then, numerical simulation was performed using FLAC3D to investigate the stress evolution in the rock bolts during the mining of the fully mechanized longwall face. The simulation results show an overall agreement with the in situ measurements. Finally, parametric study pertaining to length, anchorage length, and rock bolt spacing was carried out with the numerical model, and several suggestions for the support design were proposed.