The Effects of Deteriorated Boundary Conditions on Horizontally Framed Miter Gates

The U.S. navigable infrastructure is a system of waterways dependent upon hydraulic steel structures (HSS) to facilitate the passage of ships and cargo. The system is linear in the sense that if one HSS is impassable, the entire river system is halted at that point. The majority of the HSS in this system were built in the first half of the 20th Century, and over seventy percent of them are past or near past their design life. Miter gates are critical HSS components within the system and many are showing signs of structural distress from continued operation past their design life. Common distress features include shear cracking within the pintle socket, partially missing Quoin blocks, fatigue fracturing, and bolt failure in the pintle region. This article focuses on gaining a fundamental understanding of the consequences of quoin block deterioration on a miter gate. The work was conducted by developing a computational model of a miter gate with different levels of quoin block deterioration. This model was validated using analytical solutions. The deterioration results demonstrated that the miter gate thrust diaphragm and quoin post experienced changes in their limit states due to deterioration. The results also demonstrated that the miter gate could overcome up to 10% of quoin block deterioration.

Competitive Failure of Bolt Loosening and Fatigue under Different Preloads

Existing research on the competitive failure relationship, failure mechanism, and influencing factors of bolt loosening and fatigue under different preloads is insufficient. This study analyzes the competitive failure relationship between bolt loosening and fatigue under composite excitation through competitive failure tests of bolt loosening and fatigue under different preloads. The results indicated that the failure mode of the bolt is only related to the load ratio (R) and is unrelated to the initial preload and excitation amplitude, which only determine the failure life of the bolt. The small axial loads of composite excitation can restrain bolt failure, and the significant degree of this restraining effect is different for different preloads. Subsequently, a fracture analysis of the bolt was performed to verify the competitive failure relationship of the bolt from a microscopic perspective, and the competitive failure mechanism of the bolt was determined. Based on the findings, we propose a calculation equation for the optimal preload of 8.8 grade high-strength bolts that can serve as a reference for engineering applications.

Failure Characteristics and Stability Control of Bolt Support in Thick-Coal-Seam Roadway of Three Typical Coal Mines in China

Roadways in thick coal seams are widely distributed in China. However, due to the relatively developed cracks and brittleness of coal, the support failure of thick-coal-seam roadways frequently occurs. Therefore, the study of bolt failure characteristics and new anchoring technology is very important for the safety control of thick-coal-seam roadways. Based on field observations, the failure mechanism of selected roadway failures under distinct conditions at three representative coal mines in eastern and western China was analyzed. Recommendations are provided for roadway safety control. The results show that the strength and dimension of the anchoring structure in the coal roof of thick-coal-seam roadways are the decisive factors for the resistance of the roadway convergence and stress disturbance. The thick anchoring structure in the roof constructed by flexible long bolts can effectively solve the problem of support failure caused by insufficient support length of traditional rebar bolts under the condition of extra-thick coal roof and thick coal roof with weak interlayers. The concepts and techniques presented in the paper provide a reference for the design of roadway support under similar geological conditions and dynamic load.

Mechanism and Control of Cable Breakage in a Roadway with Thick Top Coal in a Rockburst Mine

Because top coal is not stable, a roadway with thick top coal often appears to mine pressure problems, such as bolt failure, cable breakage, and roof caving. In particular, these problems are more serious in rockburst mines. Based on a cable breakage case of No. 3 roadway in Xingcun coal mine, the paper analyzed the stress and elastic energy evolution law of surrounding rock and stress state of cable in the 3# roadway by means of the numerical simulation method. Thus, the cable breakage mechanism of the roadway with thick top coal in rockburst mine was revealed. Then, because surrounding rock grouting can reduce the stress concentration of surrounding rock and cable, surrounding rock grouting technology was proposed as control technology of cable breakage. Finally, parameters of surrounding rock grouting were designed and applied in the No. 3 roadway. The field results showed that surrounding rock grouting technology can be one of the solutions for cable breakage of roadway with thick top coal in rockburst mine. The research results of this paper can provide certain theoretical and practical value for mine pressure control of roadway.

Health assessment of a multi-bolted connection due to removing selected bolts

In the paper, experimental studies of an asymmetric preloaded seven-bolted connection are presented. The tightening process of the connection was carried out with a wrench, monitoring the values of the bolt forces with a calibrated strain gauge measuring system. Two methods of bolt tightening were tested: in one and several passes. After all bolts were tightened, the selected bolts were removed, simulating bolt failure under the loading conditions of the connection. The influence of the method and sequence of bolt tightening on the distribution of bolt forces values after the introduction of failure states of some bolts was investigated. The results were statistically processed and presented in the form of graphs showing the distributions of normalised bolt forces values for all the considered failure cases.

Experimental Test of Circular Hollow Sections Solid Flanged Splice

The use of circular hollow sections (CHS) have increased due to its aesthetic appearance and good mechanical properties. This research investigates the behavior of the bolted CHS splices with circular end plates under pure bending moment that allows the use of CHS as long flexural members. Three connections are tested and the corresponding finite element models are constructed. The finite element models are verified with the experimental results and showed acceptable agreement in terms of both ultimate moment capacity and load-displacement curves. Three modes of failure are observed where the first is pure bolt failure, the second is pure end plate yielding while the third is a combination of the two modes where end plate plastifies accompanied by bolt failure. Stiffness is also observed and is found to be greatly affected by the thickness of the end plate

Typical failure forms and improvement measures of power grid fasteners

By investigating the fastening defects of power grid components, it was concluded that unreasonable design, insufficient corrosion protection, improper assembly and insufficient fastening were the four typical forms of bolt failure. In response to the above problems, improvement measures such as design review, material sampling inspection, construction supervision, and operation and maintenance inspection were proposed.