Study on Shear Mechanism of Bolted Jointed Rocks: Experiments and CZM-Based FEM Simulations

Based on the underground jointed rock of the Huangdao water sealed oil depot in China, the shear failure mechanism of bolted jointed rock is studied through laboratory experiments and numerical simulation. Laboratory experiments are performed to explore the shear behavior of bolted jointed rock with different joint roughness. Our results show that using high strength bolts is beneficial to improving the shear strength of the jointed rock, but the high strength of bolts can also lead to the rock fracture, which should be avoided. For this particular project site, experimental results indicate that 15% elongation is the best. In addition, a new numerical simulation method with CZM (cohesive zone model) used for modeling the shearing process of bolted jointed rock is proposed. It can reasonably describe the characteristics of jointed rock as a discontinuous medium, and bolt as a continuous medium, that replicate well the shearing process. The numerical model is then verified by comparing the experiment results, and it can be effectively be applied to the simulation of joint shearing process. Finally, we use this simulation method to explore the shear failure mechanism of bolted joints, and find that the root cause of rock failure is the deformation mismatch between the bolt and the surrounding rock. The tensile stress between them eventually causes the rock to fracture near the bolt hole.