Stability of Underground Opening Roof with aLayer of Weak Rock

摘要

A roof-fall of underground opening has the possibility of causing serious damage tominers and underground installations, even if it is of small magnitude. Therefore, analysesof the stability of roof and investigation of the influence on stability are very important. Inmining practice, stratified host rock mass with a layer of weak rock is not uncommon.There are cases where a layer of weak rock is located near the opening. In general, a weaklayer has larger deformation for lower stiffness, and has low strength properties. In such acase, it is clear that the weak layer influences the roof stability. The purpose of this studyis to investigate the influence of both the depth and thickness of a weak layer on the stressdistribution and the failure characteristics of roof with a qualitative experimental model. Astratified rock structure with a horizontal, single weak layer is assumed in this model. Thebeam analysis is then developed on the basis of a model experiment, and the predicationswere compared with the experimental results.