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Mechanical Behaviour of Lump-Grout Backfill Material for Underground Spaces

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Abstract

Large-size lump (e.g., coal reject or waste rocks) is one of the most popular backfill materials for underground mines attributed to its cost-effective and easy-to-obtain. The massive void between lumps, however, does generally affect the overall performance in eliminating the ground subsidence. This paper presents a conceptual backfill material, termed as lump-grout (LG) material, the attractive feature of which is that the voids between lumps are totally filled up with high-water content cementitious grout (CG) material. To explore the mechanical behaviour of LG material, a total of 36 LG specimens were prepared and tested under the uniaxial compression and the tensile loading. Other 20 CG specimens were tested in parallel for comparison. Key configurations investigated in the present research covered the particle size of lumps and the water-to-powder ratio of CG material. Test results indicated that the stress–strain behaviour of LG specimen is predominately affected by the strength of CG material. The failure of LG material generally occurred along the interface between lumps and the cementitious grout material rather than the lumps themselves. Compared to CG material, the axial deformation ability of LG material is slightly superior, when the utilization of CG material is significantly reduced. In addition to the backfill material, the proposed LG material can be also used as the infill material for the artificial standing supports for underground spaces.

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Acknowledgements

This research is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51904268 and 52164011) and the Natural Science Foundation of **njiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China (Nos. 2022D01C411 and 2022D01C039). The first author would like to express his thanks to the University of Wollongong and Minova Australia for their kind supports in PhD research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geology and Mining Engineering, **njiang University, Ürümqi, 830000, **njiang, China

    Hongchao Zhao & Baiyun Yu

  2. School of Civil, Mining and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, 2522, Australia

    Hongchao Zhao, Ting Ren & Alex Remennikov

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  1. Hongchao Zhao
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  2. Ting Ren
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Correspondence to Hongchao Zhao.

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Zhao, H., Ren, T., Remennikov, A. et al. Mechanical Behaviour of Lump-Grout Backfill Material for Underground Spaces. Geotech Geol Eng 41, 4807–4819 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706-023-02549-8

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