Investigating the supporting effect of rock bolts in varying anchoring methods in a tunnel

Pre-tensioned rock bolts can be classified into fully anchored, lengthening anchored and point anchored bolts based on the bond length of the resin or cement mortar inside the borehole. Bolts in varying anchoring methods may significantly affect the supporting effect of surrounding rock around a tunnel. However, thus far, the theoretical basis of selecting a proper anchoring method has not been thoroughly investigated. Based on this problem, 16 schemes were designed while incorporating the effects of anchoring length, pretension, bolt length, and spacing, and a systematic numerical experiment was performed in this paper. The distribution characteristics of the stress field in the surrounding rock, which corresponded to various anchoring scenarios, were obtained. Furthermore, an analytical approach for computing the active and passive strengthening index of the anchored surrounding rock is presented. A new fully anchoring method with pretension and matching technology are also provided. Then, an isolated loading model of the anchored surrounding rock was constructed. The physical simulation test for the bearing capacity of the model was performed with three schemes. Finally, the strengthening mechanism of varying anchoring methods was validated. The research findings in this paper may provide theoretical guidelines for the design and construction of bolting support in tunnels.