BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0001] The invention relates to a method of ensuring controlled failure of a rock bolt bar. [0002] When a rock bolt is loaded in installation beyond capacity, it can break with resultant loss of load support. A danger is that a severed proximal section of the rock bolt (hereinafter“bar” and“bolt” are used interchangeably to refer to the steel bolt, rod or bar of the rock bolt) has the propensity to eject from the rock hole in which it is installed due to the rapid release of potential energy. [0003] It is important that, if a rock bolt is to break, that it breaks at a predetermined location on the bar. Controlling where the bar will break is important to the safety solution proposed in South African patent application number 2018/02957, which is herein incorporated by reference.

[0004] The specification to 2018/02957 describes forming a notch in the bar to induce bar failure at a specific location distal of a failure arrestor element so as to ensure that the severed or projectile section of the bar is restrained by engagement of the failure arrestor element with the arrestor formation.

[0005] It is typical to cold or hot form the notch into the bar. This has the effect of locally work hardening the steel of the bar. The problem with this is that the support properties of a rock bolt rely on the inherent ability of the steel bolt to stretch when loaded, absorbing energy and controlling dynamic or quasi-static movement of the rock surrounding the bolt in installation. Cold forming or rolling of the bar when creating a notch can result in localised work hardening which alters the material properties of the steel. This change in the material properties in turn alters the performance of the rock bolt.

[0006] The present invention at least partially addresses the aforementioned problem.

SUMMARY OF INVENTION

[0007] The invention provides a method of adapting a metal bar, for use as a rock bolt, to ensure that the bar will break in a predictable manner, the method including the step of removing material from the bar in a circumferential band to reduce a diameter of the bar within the band to a minor diameter thereby to provide a failure zone within which the bar will break if subjected to enough tensile load.

[0008] The zone may have a length in a range 10mm to 45mm. [0009] Preferably the zone has a length in a range 25mm to 35mm. More preferably, the range is 30mm to 35mm.

[0010] The failure zone may have a minor diameter which is less 0.5% to 5% of the diameter of the bar. Preferably the minor diameter is less 1 % to 4% of the diameter of the bar. More preferably, the minor diameter is less 2% to 3% of the diameter of the bar. [0011] The material is removed in such a manner as to ensure that the minor diameter is consistent within the band.

[0012] Preferably, the diameter of the bar is in the range 16mm to 25mm.

[0013] The material may be removed by any suitable method subtractive manufacturing process, for example by machining or grinding.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0014] The invention is described with reference to the following drawings in which:

Figure 1 is a view in elevation of a leading end portion of a rock bolt assembly with a failure zone provided in accordance with the method of the invention; Figure 2 is a series of diagrams of a length of bar illustrating the bar breaking with (a) a brittle fracture pattern, and (b) and (c) a ductile fracture pattern;

Figure 3 is a pair of photographs showing the severed ends of sections of bar displaying (a) a ductile fracture pattern, and (b) a brittle fracture pattern; and

Figure 4A and 4B diagrammatically represent a bar with a failure zone, unloaded and placed under load respectively.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0015] Figure 1 illustrates a rock bolt assembly 10 which is an example of the application of a failure zone or notch 12 to a rock bolt bar 14 to provide a solution to the problem described above. This example is not limiting on the invention and it is envisaged that there are further applications to a rock bolt having such a notch. [0016] For an arrestor formation 16 to engage a swaged section of a sleeve 18, to prevent a proximal end section 20 of the bar 14 from ejecting from a rock hole (not shown) in which the assembly 10 is installed, the bar must break ahead of the formation. If a break occurs between the formation and the proximal end section, nothing will arrest this ejectment.

[0017] The bar is likely to break as the tensile load to which it is subjected to in use leads up to its maximum load capacity. To provide predictability as to where on the bar 14 the break will occur, the notch 12 is provided at a predetermined position along the length of the bar. The notch provides this break locality predictability. [0018] However, if the notch is to provide this predictability, the notch must be designed so that the bar is certain to break within the confines of the notch each and every time. At the same time, the notch cannot have a material impact on the ability of the bar to provide its load bearing function.

[0019] The notch, as a zone weakness relative to the rest of the bar, limits the inherent potential of the bar to provide support up to a particular load which, hitherto, would be a factor of the constituent steel material and the diameter. If the notch is hot or cold formed, hardening of the steel in the locality of the notch, due to changes in material properties, will introduce greater load capacity variance to this limitation. The steel’s crystalline structure is changed due to work hardening to become more brittle. This change in the ductility of the steel is not a regular or predictable change and so, about the formed notch, the bar has a tendency to break relatively suddenly, at an unpredictable load, to displaying a brittle fracture pattern as illustrated in Figure 2 (a). [0020] The applicant has found that to ensure that a metal bar will break in a predictable manner, i.e. predictable as to the position of the break and the load at which the break occurs, the notch 12 must be made on the bar 14 by employing a subtractive manufacturing process. This process can be, for example, a machining or a grinding process. In other words the notch has to be made by removing material rather than by moving material in a forming or rolling process.

[0021] In accordance with the invention, the notch must be machined to recess below the bar surface to a consistent minor diameter (hereinafter minor diameter and notch diameter are used interchangeably to mean the same thing). The minor diameter of the notch can be in a relatively broad range, dependent on the required product specification of the rock bolt to which the bar is applied. The smaller the diameter of the bar at the notch, of course, the less is the ultimate load capacity (UTS) of the bar. The applicant found that by removing material to a minor diameter of only 1 % less than the diameter of the bar was enough to achieve regular breaking within the notch without sacrificing on UTS.

[0022] However it is found that not only must the notch 12 be machined into the bar 14 but also that the notch must have a length which will allow the formation of an uninterrupted ductile failure neck 22 within the notch area, when the bar is loaded to ultimate capacity. See Figure 3B which illustrates this ductile fracture neck and Figure 2 (b) and (c) which illustrate the ductile fracture shape post break.

[0023] Two parameters of the notch, being depth of notch and length of notch, were explored in two series of tests. A discussion of each follows. Quasi-Static Test

[0024] Test samples were subjected to a quasi-static pull test wherein each sample was a 20mm diameter bar. The samples included a control sample with no notch and three other samples, each having a 30mm long notch, with a notch or minor diameter of 19.8mm, 19.5mm and 19mm respectively (tolerance of +/- 0.03). The samples were prepared in triplicate. Each notch was machined into the bar at its centre. Each bar thereafter was prepared before being pull tested in a tensile test machine.

[0025] A total of twelve quasi-static pull tests were conducted in the test, the results of which are presented in Table 1 and Figure 4. These results are compared against the notchless control samples. The reduction in ultimate strength as tabulated below the notch diameter heading is an average value over the triplicates of each sample batch.

[0026] Importantly, all tested samples achieved a ductile failure over the notch zone as per intended design (see Figure 5), without a significant loss in ultimate tensile strength (UTS). The minimum guaranteed ultimate tensile strength specification for a

20mm, 500N bar is 210kN. This value defines the minimum performance benchmark for the machined notch design. The quasi-static test suggests that the smallest permissible notch/minor diameter is 19mm which produces an average bar UTS of 213kN (see Table 1 ). A notch diameter smaller than this would result in a bar UTS of less than the minimum performance benchmark of 210Kn.

Table 1

[0027] Figure 3 illustrates that a reduction in notch diameter results in an overall bar deformation before failure, and therefore a reduction in dynamic energy absorption potential. For this reason and to preserve bar UTS, the notch diameter should be as large as possible whilst ensuring consistent failure over the machined zone.

[0028] Figure 6 graphically illustrates a reduction in bar UTS as the diameter of the machined notch is reduced. This allows the applicant to forecast the bar UTS for notch diameters not tested between the limits of <a 20.0mm to <a 19.0mm. The plot also compares the UTS of each notch against the minimum UTS specification offered with the 20mm Vulcan bar.

Dynamic Testing

[0029] Test samples were subjected to a dynamic impact test. Each sample was a 20mm x 1 100 with 100mm of RD22 thread over each end bar, with a control sample (no notch) and three other samples (30mm long notch) with a respective notch or minor diameter of 19.8mm, 19.6mm, 19.5mm and 19.4 mm (tolerance of +/- 0.03). The samples were prepared in triplicate. Each notch was machined into the bar at its centre. [0030] Each bar thereafter was prepared and installed in the drop test machine for testing. Each bar was subjected to a 37.4 kJ energy impulse at 5.45 m/s.

[0031] A total of fifteen dynamic impact tests were conducted in this series. Figure 7 illustrates a comparison of average energy absorption capacity against the notch diameter. Table 2 summarises the area or mode of failure for each test sample (one

19.8mm sample was omitted due to incomplete data capture during testing).

[0032] The average energy absorption capacity of a standard 20mm x 1 100 bar with a cold-rolled induced failure notch design, in accordance with the prior art, is 22.5kJ. This value defines the minimum performance benchmark for the machined notch design.

Table 2

[0033] As shown in Figure 8, all except one of the non-control test samples failed over the machined notch. The mode of failure was the formation of ductile necking over the machined zone, leading to a local reduction in the bar diameter and ultimate bar failure. The tests also show that a notch diameter of at least 19.6mm (i.e. less 2% of the diameter of the 20mm bar) is required to achieved consistent dynamic failure over the machined zone and that a minimum notch diameter of 19.4mm is required to ensure the dynamic capacity of the bar is equal to or greater that minimum performance benchmark. [0034] As part of this experiment, the applicant found that a minimum notch length of 30mm for a 20mm bar is required to ensure the ductile failure neck 22 does not meet changes in bar diameter or geometry, at notch boundaries 24 and 26. It was observed that when the ductile failure neck does meet changes in bar diameter or geometry, at the notch boundaries, inconsistency in break location and load return. Surprisingly, this minimum length of 30mm holds true for bar diameters between

16mm and 22mm.

[0035] In summary, a bar having a machined notch in accordance with the invention is able to at least match the performance characteristics of the present cold-rolled notch method whilst offering improved failure zone consistency, design robustness and ease of bulk manufacture.