An anchorage experimental study on supporting a roadway in steeply inclined geological formations

Abstract The support of rock bolt plays a significant role in maintaining the stability of a roadway in steeply inclined geological formations, yet choosing a reasonable support scheme of rock bolt in this situation is still not well understood. To reveal the force or stress distribution mechanism of anchor bolts and design an effective support scheme, an in situ anchorage experiment was conducted in a deep-buried roadway in steeply inclined rock strata. This results of this study demonstrate that in the steeply inclined rock formations, the intersection angle of a bolt length direction and the interface of rock layers have a great effect on the distribution and variation of axial force in bolts. The axial forces at the positions near the intersection of the interface and bolt increase a lot with time. In addition, the existence of no small or non-zero axial force at the end of anchor bolts indicates that much longer bolts should be used to prevent further deformation in steeply inclined rock.