Utilizing a novel fiber optic technology to capture the axial responses of fully grouted rock bolts

Rock bolts are one of the primary support systems utilized in underground excavations within the civil and mining engineering industries. Rock bolts support the weakened rock mass adjacent to the opening of an excavation by fastening to the more stable, undisturbed formations further from the excavation. The overall response of such a support element has been determined under varying loading conditions in the laboratory and in situ experiments in the past four decades; however, due to the limitations with conventional monitoring methods of capturing strain, there still exists a gap in knowledge associated with an understanding of the geomechanical responses of rock bolts at the microscale. In this paper, we try to address this current gap in scientific knowledge by utilizing a newly developed distributed optical strain sensing (DOS) technology that provides an exceptional spatial resolution of 0.65 mm to capture the strain along the rock bolt. This DOS technology utilizes Rayleigh optical frequency domain reflectometry (ROFDR) which provides unprecedented insight into various mechanisms associated with axially loaded rebar specimens of different embedment lengths, grouting materials, borehole annulus conditions, and borehole diameters. The embedment length of the specimens was found to be the factor that significantly affected the loading of the rebar. The critical embedment length for the fully grouted rock bolts (FGRBs) was systematically determined to be 430 mm. The results herein highlight the effects of the variation of these individual parameters on the geomechanical responses FGRBs.