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Sustainable Engineering: Prevention of Rock and Thermal Damage

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Engineering and Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2023) | Viewed by 5668

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Jielin Li

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Guest Editor

School of Resources and Safety Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China
Interests: mining technology; rock mechanical; geotechnical; prevention and control heat harm in deep mines

Dr. Chun Yang

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Guest Editor

Department of Mining Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China
Interests: numerical modelling; microwave-assisted rock breakage; mining; rock mechanics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Quan Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

School of Mines, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China
Interests: non-explosive rock-breaking technology (instantaneous expansion with a single fracture; hydraulic fracturing; laser fracturing; supercritical CO₂ fracturing; etc.); explosive controlled blasting

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

With the increasing demand for underground space, numerous underground projects have been performed worldwide which involve deep underground mining, underground energy storage, etc. In addition, new rock breaking technologies such as laser and microwave heating have been gradually developed in the field of hard rock excavation. As the complexity of underground engineering and new rock breaking technologies increase, associated rock and thermal damage arise during the construction and maintenance process. Ensuring the safety, stability, and reliability of geotechnical engineering has become a new challenge. There has been a major demand to prevent of rock and thermal damages.

For these reasons, we propose a wide-ranging topic that can be summarized as “Sustainable Engineering: Prevention of Rock and Thermal Damage”. Articles submitted to this Special Issue can also be concerned with the most important recent mechanical properties of rock at high temperatures, mining technology in deep mine, thermal hazard in deep engineering, microwave heating, geothermal, dry hot rock, thermal hazard prevention and control measures, and their applications in the area of geotechnical and mining engineering.

This Special Issue aims to bring together original research and review articles highlighting recent advances and challenges in prevention of rock and thermal damage.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but not limited to) the following: theoretical derivation; numerical modelling; experimental investigation; and field studies at various scales that explore prevention of rock and thermal damage.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Jielin Li
Dr. Chun Yang
Dr. Quan Zhang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

mechanical properties of rock at high temperatures
mining technology in deep mine
thermal hazard in deep engineering
microwave heating
laser and microwave fracturing
geothermal
dry hot rock
thermal hazard prevention and control measures

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

22 pages, 21916 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evolution Law of Acoustic–Thermal Effect of Freeze–Thaw Sandstone Failure Based on Coupling of Multivariate Monitoring Information

by Hui Liu, Jianxi Ren, Xinyue Dai, Can Mei, Di Wang, Runqi Wang and Minkai Zhu

Sustainability 2023, 15(12), 9611; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15129611 - 15 Jun 2023

Viewed by 667

Abstract

The instability and failure of rock that has been frozen and thawed cause serious rock engineering accidents in cold regions. Exploring the precursor information of freeze–thaw rock failure is of great theoretical value and engineering significance. Real-time uniaxial compression acoustic thermal monitoring experiments were conducted on freeze–thaw sandstone, and non-contact rock fracture precursor warning indicators were proposed. According to the coupled analysis of acoustic–thermal monitoring information, a precursor information chain for freeze–thaw rocks was established in time and space, and the spatiotemporal evolution of damage and acoustic thermal effects of freeze–thaw sandstone under compressive load was studied. The freeze–thaw cycle enhances the sensitivity of acoustic–thermal precursor information. Significant synchronous changes in ring count often occur during the rapid expansion period of damage, which can provide an essential reference for the occurrence and intensification of damage. The sequence of precursor warning information during the process of freeze–thaw sandstone compression failure is in the order of thermal infrared temperature → acoustic emission ringing count → acoustic emission energy → infrared thermal image. Thermal infrared temperature and acoustic emission precursor information can help in prioritizing early warning of rock damage in terms of time. At the same time, thermal image anomalies can predict potential fracture areas of rocks. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Engineering: Prevention of Rock and Thermal Damage)

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12 pages, 2896 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Fluid–Solid Coupling Numerical Analysis of Pore Water Pressure and Settlement in Vacuum-Preloaded Soft Foundation Based on FLAC3D

by Ming Lei, Shilin Luo, Jin Chang, Rui Zhang, Xilong Kuang and Jianqing Jiang

Sustainability 2023, 15(10), 7841; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15107841 - 10 May 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 991

Abstract

There are few calculation methods for the design and construction of vacuum preloading to strengthen soft foundations. Based on the FLAC3D, a calculation model was established for the vacuum preloading project of the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed railway. Through calculation and comparison of measured values, the following results were obtained: (1) The top surface of the reinforcement area and the sand drain can be regarded as the load boundary, which can be realized by assigning the node pore water pressure. (2) After 30 days of vacuum action, the settlement rate at each depth decreased significantly and the deformation gradually became stable. It is reasonable to design the vacuum preloading time as 2–4 months. (3) The negative pore water pressure has different transmission times and uneven distribution, which makes the consolidation time and degree of soil on the same level uneven. After 30 days of vacuum action, this uneven phenomenon will be transformed into a uniform phenomenon. (4) The change time of pore water pressure under vacuum preloading is about 30 days. After that, the pore water pressure at different depths will tend to have different constant values. The influence depth of vacuum preloading can reach 16 m. These works can make up for the deficiency of vacuum preloading calculation methods. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Engineering: Prevention of Rock and Thermal Damage)

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17 pages, 8413 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Discrete Element Modeling of Thermally Damaged Sandstone Containing Two Pre-Existing Flaws at High Confining Pressure

by Jinzhou Tang, Shengqi Yang, Ke Yang, Wenling Tian, Guangjian Liu and Minke Duan

Sustainability 2023, 15(7), 6318; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15076318 - 06 Apr 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1089

Abstract

An underground coal gasification (UCG) process is strongly exothermic, which will cause thermal damage on rock cap. We proposed a new thermal damage numerical model based on a two dimension particle flow code (PFC2D) to analyze the inception and extension of cracks on pre-cracked red sandstone, which were thermally treated at a temperature of 25~1000 °C. The results indicated that: (1) a thermal damage value D_T obtained by extracting the thermal crack area of scanning electron microscope (SEM), which can be used as an indicator of the degree of thermal damage of the sandstone; (2) a thermal damage numerical model established by replacing the flat-joint model with the smooth-joint model based on the thermal damage value D_T, this approach can properly simulate the mechanical behavior and failure patterns of sandstone; (3) the critical temperature for strength reduction was 750 °C. The peak strength increased as pre-treatment temperature increased from 25 to 750 °C and then decreased. The elastic modulus E₁ decreased with the increasing thermal treatment temperature; (4) micro-scale cracks initiate from the tip of the prefabricated fissure, and expand along the direction of prefabricated fissure, finally developing into macroscopic fracture. This approach has the potential to enhance the predictive capability of modeling and presents a reliable model to simulate the mechanical behavior of thermally damaged sandstones, thereby offering a sound scientific basis for the utilization of space after UCG. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Engineering: Prevention of Rock and Thermal Damage)

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19 pages, 5280 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Numerical Simulation of Underground Mining-Induced Fault-Influenced Rock Movement and Its Application

by Keping Zhou, Hao Xu, Chun Yang, Xin Xiong and Feng Gao

Sustainability 2023, 15(6), 5197; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15065197 - 15 Mar 2023

Viewed by 1173

Abstract

The F317 fault, as a major tectonic zone in the Jianshan mine area, influences the geotectonic features and geomechanical properties of the mine area. Mining operations need to be conducted within these tectonic systems, so it is important to fully study and understand the characteristics and evolution of these tectonic systems to develop reasonable mining plans and safety measures. Aiming at the problem that the existence of the F317 fault affects the stability of the west road during the mining of the security pillar at The Jianshan underground mine in Panzhihua Iron Mine, the mechanical model of the fault surface was established through the theory of material mechanics. The mechanical criterion of fault slip during the security pillar retrieval process was obtained and combined with the contact surface theory in the numerical analysis software FLAC^3D. Two numerical calculation models with and without the F317 fault were established to analyze the change characteristics of the maximum tensile stress and displacement of the road protection zone under different simulation scenarios. The influence of the fault’s presence on the surface road’s stability during the security pillar retrieval process was obtained. The study results show that changes in positive and shear stresses at the fault face caused by the security pillar retrieval process are the main factors influencing the fault slip. The upper side of the fault tends to slip along the fault face during the security pillar retrieval process, which theoretically prevents the transfer of subsidence displacement caused by underground mining to the roadside (foot side of the fault). The presence of the F317 fault has less effect on the tensile stresses at the road protection zone. Still, the fault allows the tensile stresses to be concentrated at the top and bottom of the quarry and at the isolated pillar, which is more likely to cause the rock to be stretched and squeezed. Without the F317 fault, the maximum subsidence displacement at the road protection zone is 30.59 mm, the maximum X-directional displacement is 42.17 mm (both of which are greater than the safe displacement limit by 20 mm), and the maximum Y-directional displacement is 19.75 mm, which is less than the safe displacement limit by 20 mm. Compared with the case without the F317 fault, the displacement at the road protection zone with the F317 fault is smaller, with a maximum subsidence displacement of 16.92 mm, a maximum X-directional displacement of 19.63 mm, and a maximum Y-directional displacement of 3.35 mm, all of which are less than the safe displacement limits. Therefore, the presence of the F317 fault provides some protection to the west side of the road from collapse due to underground mining. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Engineering: Prevention of Rock and Thermal Damage)

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23 pages, 7653 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evaluation of Real-Time Perception of Deformation State of Host Rocks in Coal Mine Roadways in Dusty Environment

by Pengfei Shan, Chengwei Yan, Xingping Lai, Haoqiang Sun, Chao Li and Xingzhou Chen

Sustainability 2023, 15(3), 2816; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15032816 - 03 Feb 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1045

Abstract

Intelligent mining needs to achieve real-time acquisition of surrounding rock deformation data of roadways and analysis and provide technical support for intelligent mining construction. To solve problems such as significant error, information lag, and low acquisition frequency of surrounding rock monitoring technology at the current stage, a perception method, RSBV of roadway deformation situation, based on binocular vision is proposed, which realizes the dynamic, accurate real-time acquisition of host rocks’ relative deformation in a dusky environment. The low illumination image enhancement method is used to preprocess original images, which reduces the impact of low illumination and high dust; the K-medoids algorithm segments the target image, and the SIFT algorithm extracts feature points from the ROI (region of interest). The influence of eliminating background images on the feature point extraction is revealed, and the efficiency of feature extraction is improved; the method of SIFT feature-matching with epipolar constraints is studied, which improves the accuracy and speed of feature points. The roadway deformation characteristics are analyzed, and the reflective target is used as the monitoring point. A roadway deformation acquisition and analysis platform based on binocular vision is built in a dim environment. Zhang’s method is selected to calibrate the camera parameters, and stereo rectification is carried out for the target motion image. The adaptability of the RSBV method to different surrounding rock deformation scales is studied and compared with the measurement results of the SGBM algorithm. The results show that the error of the RSBV method is controlled within 1.6%, which is 2.88% lower than the average error of the SGBM algorithm. The average time for processing a group of binocular images is 1.87 s, which is only 20% of the SGBM algorithm. The research result provides a reliable theoretical basis for the real-time and accurate evaluation of the surrounding rock deformation mechanism. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Engineering: Prevention of Rock and Thermal Damage)

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