An experimental investigation on mechanical property and anchorage effect of bolted jointed rock mass

Apparent discontinuities can be easily found in natural rock medium owing to the constant motion and change of the Earth’s crust, which contains large amount of discontinuous surfaces such as faults, joints, cracks and so forth. Rock bolt is one of the most effective and economical reinforcing tools in practical geotechnical engineering for a long time. This paper investigates the mechanical properties, anchorage effect, cracking, and coalescence process of intact rock-like specimens, rock-like specimens containing flaws, and bolted rock-like specimens containing flaws. A series of uniaxial compression tests, splitting tests, and biaxial compression tests are performed on these specimens. Some findings can be observed from this study. (1) The number of rock bolt(s) and the anchoring angle have a great influence on the anchorage effect of rock bolt(s). With the increasing number of rock bolt(s), the uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), the splitting peak strength (which can be converted to the tensile strength), and biaxial compressive strength (BCS) can all be improved, whose variation tendencies do not follow a linear relationship. (2) The contributions to the tensile strength for rock bolt is greater than that to the UCS for the same-type specimen. (3) In the biaxial compression tests, with the increasing of the lateral pressures, the anchorage effect of rock bolt gradually declines and the lateral pressure plays a dominant role in improving the strength of the specimen. The failure characteristics of three types of laboratory tests have also been systematically analyzed in this paper.