Effect of pre-tensioned rock bolts on stress redistribution around a roadway—insight from numerical modeling

The importance of the pre-tensioned force of rock bolts has been recognized by more and more researchers. To investigate the effect of pre-tensioned rock bolts on stress redistribution around roadways, a numerical analysis was carried out using FLAC3D and a special post-process methodology, using surfer, is proposed to process the numerical simulation results. The results indicate that pre-tensioned rock bolts have a significant effect on stress redistribution around a roadway. In the roof, pre-tensioned rock bolts greatly increase vertical stress; as a result, the strength of the rock mass increased significantly which results in a greater capacity of bearing a large horizontal stress. The horizontal stress decreases in the upper section of the roof, indicating that pre-tensioned rock bolts significantly reduce the coefficient and the size of the region concentration of horizontal stress. At the lateral side, pre-tensioned rock bolts greatly increase the horizontal stress; therefore, the rock mass strength significantly increases which results also in a greater capacity of bearing a large vertical stress. The greater the size of pre-tensioned force, the larger the region of stress redistribution around a roadway is affected and the higher the size of the stress on the roadway surface the more the rock mass strength increases.