Numerical Simulation of Reinforcement for Rock Slope with Rock Bolt (Anchor Cable) Frame Beam

Abstract

As two new kinds of compound reinforcement facilities, rock bolt frame beam and anchor cable frame beam are widely used for reinforcement of rock slopes in recent years. However, past studies on the two facilities synthetically considering interactions among rock bolt (anchor cable), frame beam and rock masses are quite few. Coupled with 1-D elastic-plastic cable elements and 3-D elastic-plastic pole elements, 3-D linear-elastic beam elements were used to simulate the interactions between reinforcement and the reinforced rock slope. Influence of the reinforcement on the stability of one rock slope of an expressway was assessed on the basis of the simulation results. The results show that (1) both rock bolt reinforcement methods with or without frame beam are helpful for the improvement of the stability of surface layer of the slope in terms of displacement and stress distribution, but deformation on the slope surface is significantly reduced with frame beam; (2) fields of the displacements and stresses in the slope are greatly related to the layout of the cables and the design magnitude of the prestress. Therefore, reinforcement of prestressed anchor cable coupled with frame beam is one of the most effective methods to improve the stability of the studied slope.