• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.607-624
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• 2016

Rockburst is becoming more serious in Chinese coal mine. One of the effective methods to control rockburst is blasting. In the paper, we monitored and analyzed the blasting waves at different blast center distances by the Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) in a coal mine. Results show that with the increase of blast center distance, the main frequency and amplitude of blasting waves show the decreasing trend. The attenuation of blasting waves is slower in the near blast field (10-75 m), compared with the far blast field (75-230 m). Besides, the frequency superposition phenomenon aggravates in the far field. A majority of the blasting waves energy at different blast center distances is concentrated around the IMF components 1-3. The instantaneous energy peak shows attenuation trend with the blast center distance increase, there are two obvious energy peaks in the near blast field (10-75 m), the energy spectrum appears "fat", and the total energy is greater. By contrast, there is only an energy peak in the far blast field, the energy spectrum is "thin", and the total energy is lesser. The HHT three dimensional spectrum shows that the wave energy accumulates in the time and frequency with the increasing of blast center distance.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.439-448
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• 2019

The bearing capacity of roadside support is the key problem in gob-side entry retaining technology. To study the cooperative bearing characteristics of the roof-roadside support-floor along the gob-side entry retaining, a mechanical model of the composite structure of the roof-roadside support-floor was first established. A method for determining the structural parameters of gob-side entry retaining was then proposed. Based on this model, adaptability analysis of roadside support was carried out. The results showed that the reasonable width of the gob-side entry roadway was inversely proportional to the mining height, and directly proportional to the bearing strength of the roof and floor. And the reasonable width of the "flexible-hard" roadside support was directly proportional to its own strength, and inversely proportional to the width of the gob-side entry retaining. When determining the position and size of the roadside support along the gob-side entry retaining, the surrounding rock environment should be fully considered. Measured results from case study also show the rationality of the model and calculation method.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.151-157
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• 2018

The constrained conditions of roof and floor for the coal pillar affect the strength of coal pillar very seriously. To analyze the influence of rock mass for the roof and floor on the stability of coal pillar comprehensively, one method based on the mechanical method for the composite rock mass was proposed. In this method, the three rock layers of roof, floor and coal pillar are taken as the bedded composite rock mass. And the influence of rock mass for the roof and floor on the elastic core of coal pillar has been analyzed. This method can obtain not only the derived stress by the cohesive constraining forces for the coal pillar, but also the derived stress for the rock mass of the roof and floor. Moreover, the effect of different mechanical parameters for the roof and floor on the stability of coal pillar have been analyzed systematically. This method can not only analyze the stability of strip coal pillar, but also analyze the stability of other mining pillars whose stress distribution is similar with that of the strip coal pillar.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.963-975
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• 2017

Improvement of soft clay deposit by preloading with vertical drains is one of the most popular techniques followed worldwide. These drains accelerate the rate of consolidation by shortening the drainage path. Although the analytical and numerical solutions available are mostly based on equal strain hypothesis, the adoption of free strain analysis is more realistic because of the flexible nature of the imposed surcharge loading, especially for the embankment loading used for transport infrastructure. In this paper, a numerical model has been developed based on free strain hypothesis for understanding the behaviour of soft ground improvement by vertical drain with preloading. The unit cell analogy is used and the effect of smear has been incorporated. The model has been validated by comparing with available field test results and thereafter, a hypothetical case study is done using the available field data for soft clay deposit existing in the eastern part of Australia and important conclusions are drawn therefrom.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.495-510
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• 2015

The applications of water jet cutting (WJC) in coal mine have progressed slowly. In this paper, we analyzed the possibility and reasonableness of WJC application to pressure relief in hard coal seam, simulated the distributive characteristics of stress and energy fields suffered by hard coal roadway wallrock and the internal relationships of the fields to the instability due to WJC (including horizontal radial slot and vertical annular slot) on roadway wallrock. The results showed that: (1) WJC can unload hard coal seam effectively by inducing stress release and energy dissipation in coal mass near its slots; its annular slots also can block or weaken stress and energy transfer in coal mass; (2) the two slots may cause "the beam structure" and "the small pillar skeleton", and "the layered energy reservoir structure", respectively, which lead to the increase in stress concentration and energy accumulation in coal element mass near the slots; (3) the reasonable design and optimization of slots' positions and their combination not only can significantly reduce the scope of stress concentration and energy accumulation, but also destroy coal mass structure on a larger scale to force stress to transfer deeper coal mass.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.405-418
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• 2020

Deep excavation may have impact on the adjacent tunnels. It is obvious that the excavation will adversely affect and even damage the existing tunnels if the induced deformation exceeds the capacity of tunnel structures. It hence creates a high necessity to predict tunnel displacement induced by nearby excavation to ensure the safety of tunnel. In this paper, a simplified method to evaluate the heave of the underlying tunnel induced by adjacent excavation is presented and verified by field measurement results. In the proposed model, the tunnel is represented by a series of short beams connected by tensile springs, compressional springs and shear springs, so that the rotational effect and shearing effect of the joints between lining rings can be captured. The proposed method is compared with the previous modelling methods (e.g., Euler-Bernoulli beam, a series of short beams connected only by shear springs) based on a field measured longitudinal deformation of subway tunnels. Results of these case studies show a reasonable agreement between the predictions and observations.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.349-359
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• 2020

Quantification of the influence of the fracture of thick magmatic rock (TMR) on the behavior of its overlying strata is a prerequisite to the understanding of the deformation behavior of the earth's surface in deep mining. A three-dimensional numerical model of a special geological mining condition of overlying TMR was developed to investigate the overburden movement and fracture law, and compare the influence of the occurrence horizon of TMR. The research results show that the movement of overlying rock was greatly affected by the TMR. Before the fracture of TMR, the TMR had shielding and controlling effects on the overlying strata, the maximum vertical and horizontal displacement values of overlying strata were 0.68 m and 0.062 m. After the fracture, the vertical and horizontal displacements suddenly increased to 3.06 m and 0.105 m, with an increase of 350% and 69.4%, respectively, and the higher the occurrence of TMR, the smaller the settlement of the overlying strata, but the wider the settlement span, the smaller the corresponding deformation value of the basin edge (the more difficult the surface to crack). These results are of tremendous importance for the control of rock strata and the revealing of surface deformation mechanism under TMR mining conditions in mines.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.331-339
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• 2018

Worldwide growth in hydrocarbon and energy demand is driving the oil and gas companies to drill more wells in complex situations such as areas with high-pressure, high-temperature conditions. As a result, in recent years the number of wells in these conditions have been increased significantly. Wellbore instability is one of the main issues during the drilling operation especially for directional and horizontal wells. Many researchers have studied the wellbore stability in complex situations and developed mathematical models to mitigate the instability problems before drilling operation. In this work, a fully coupled thermoporoelastic model is developed to study the well stability in high-pressure, high-temperature conditions. The results show that the performance of the model is highly dependent on the truly evaluated rock mechanical properties. It is noted that the rock mechanical properties should be evaluated at elevated pressures and temperatures. However, in many works, this is skipped and the mechanical properties, which are evaluated at room conditions, are entered into the model. Therefore, an accurate stability analysis of high-pressure, high-temperature wells is achieved by measuring the rock mechanical properties at elevated pressures and temperatures, as the difference between the model outputs is significant.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.143-154
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• 2009

Many factors influence occurrences of rock burst in coal mines, such as mining methods, control methods of the coal roof, lithological characteristics of the roof and floor, tectonic stress, groundwater and so on. Among those factors, lithological characteristics in the roof are the intrinsic controlling factors that affect rock burst during coal mining. Tangshan colliery is one of the coal mines that have suffered seriously from rock bursts in China. In this paper, based on the investigating the lithological characteristics of coal roofs and occurrence of rock bursts in Tangshan colliery, a numerical method is used to study the influence of roof lithological characteristics on rock burst potential. The results show that the lithological characteristics in the roof have an important impact on the distributions of stresses and elastic strain energy in coal seams and their surrounding rocks. Occurrences of rock bursts in this colliery have a close correlation with the thick-bedded, medium- to fine-grained sandstones in the roof. Such strata can easily cause severe stress concentration and accumulate enough energy to trigger rock bursts in the working face during mining operations.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.567-574
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• 2019

In order to study the effect of stress and water pressure on the permeability of fractured rock mass under three-dimensional stress conditions, a single fracture triaxial stress-seepage coupling model was established; By using the stress-seepage coupling true triaxial test system, large-scale rock specimens were taken as the research object to carry out the coupling test of stress and seepage, the fitting formula of permeability coefficient was obtained. The influence of three-dimensional stress and water pressure on the permeability coefficient of fractured rock mass was discussed. The results show that the three-dimensional stress and water pressure have a significant effect on the fracture permeability coefficient, showing a negative exponential relationship. Under certain water pressure conditions, the permeability coefficient decreases with the increase of the three-dimensional stress, and the normal principal stress plays a dominant role in the permeability. Under certain stress conditions, the permeability coefficient increases when the water pressure increases. Further analysis shows that when the gob floor rock mass is changed from high stress to unloading state, the seepage characteristics of the cracked channels will be evidently strengthened.