Experimental evaluation of the active tension bolt

To secure the stability of geotechnical infrastructures and minimize failures during the construction process, a number of support systems have been introduced in the last several decades. In particular, stabilization methods using steel bars have been widely used in the field of geotechnical engineering. Rock bolt system is representative support system using steel bars. Pre-stressing has been applied to enhance reinforcement performance but can be released because of the failure of head or anchor sections. To overcome this deficiency, this paper proposes an innovative support system that can actively reinforce the weak ground along the whole structural element by introducing an active tension bolt containing a spring unit to the middle of the steel bar to increase its reinforcement capacity. In addition, the paper presents the support mechanism of the active tension bolt based on a theoretical study and employs an experimental study to validate the performance of the proposed active tension bolt based on a down-scaled model. To examine the feasibility of the active tension unit in a pillar, the paper considers a pullout test and a small-scale experimental model. The experimental results suggest the active tension bolt to be an effective support system for pillar reinforcement.