Pullout test of rock bolts at the Lima Hydropower station : -Assessment of the test method

Abstract: During construction of dams, rock bolts are in general installed in the interface between concrete and rock as an extra safety measure against overturning failure. These bolts are however not allowed to be taken into consideration for the stability calculations of large dams. New standards and new design criterias have increased the requirements of the safety of the old dams, leading to a need for expensive rehabilitation and strengthening. It is possible that consideration of these bolts in stability calculations may lead to money being saved. In order to do so more information about the long term strength of these bolts is needed. One way of getting this information has been the destructive testing of old dugout bolts found during reconstruction works. At the Lima hydropower station in Sweden, this kind of testing was made. The test rig used had a design where a piston pressed down on the rock around the bolt in order to pull it out. The question was raised if this could affect the failure load of the bolt. In this thesis, an attempt was made to answer this question using finite element methods. Models of a rock bolt was made in Abaqus, where one model included the piston and one where it was not. The connection between the bolt and the rock was modelled with nonlinear springs and friction, and the results were then compared between the cases and with experimental data. The results showed that the resulting force-deformation curves may be affected by the piston in cases where the dominant failure mode was adhesive failure, which would influence failure loads and deformations. Since so little was known about the properties of the rock and grout at Lima however, it is difficult to say to which extent the test rig has affected these results.