Research Information System
ROCK MECHANICS AND ROCK ENGINEERING, vol.49, pp.3205-3222, 2016 (SCI-Expanded)
The effects of curing time on tensile elastic material properties of thin spray-on liners (TSLs) were investigated in this study. Two different TSL products supplied by two manufacturers were tested comparatively. The "dogbone" tensile test samples that were prepared in laboratory conditions with different curing times (1, 7, 14, 21, and 28 days) were tested based on ASTM standards. It was concluded that longer curing times improves the tensile strength and the Young's Modulus of the TSLs but decreases their elongation at break. Moreover, as an additional conclusion of the testing procedure, it was observed that during the tensile tests, the common malpractice of measuring sample displacement from the grips of the loading machine with a linear variable displacement transducer versus the sample's gauge length had a major impact on modulus and deformation determination of TSLs. To our knowledge, true stress-strain curves were generated for the first time in TSL literature within this study. Numerical analyses of the laboratory tests were also conducted using Particle Flow Code in 2 Dimensions (PFC2D) in an attempt to guide TSL researchers throughout the rigorous PFC simulation process to model support behaviour of TSLs. A scaling coefficient between macro- and micro-properties of PFC was calculated which will help future TSL PFC modellers mimic their TSL behaviours for various tensile loading support scenarios.