The large volume of mine tailings as well as the considerable concentration of toxic pollutants, resulted from mining activities, cause irreparable damage to the surrounding environment. The leakage of toxic elements from the mine tailings to the environment is considered as a crucial issue. The reuse of mine tailings in concrete industry is considered as one of the main management techniques to reduce their probable adverse effects. In this study, the tailings of Sungun copper mine were collected to investigate their applicability in concrete construction instead of fine-grained materials. The results revealed that the concentrations of copper, arsenic, lead, chromium, cobalt, and nickel in copper mine tailings were higher than the environ

The main objective of this study is to estimate the amount of groundwater inflow into Dorud-Khorramabad railway tunnel. To this end, at first place, existing approaches of predicting of groundwater inflow into tunnel was reviewed. According to the literature, up to know, a wide range of approaches have been proposed in order to predict the groundwater inflow into tunnel which can be classified into three distinct group including analytical solutions, empirical equations, and numerical modeling. Analytical solution and empirical equations are mainly developed based on the given hypotheses and specific date sets, respectively, and should be applied just in similar conditions. On the other hand, results obtained from numerical modeling are gen

During the past decades, the application of acoustic emission techniques (AET) through the diagnosis and monitoring of the fracture process in materials has been attracting considerable attention. AET proved to be operative among the other non-destructive testing methods for various reasons including their practicality and cost-effectiveness. Concrete and rock structures often demand thorough and real-time assessment to predict and prevent their damage nucleation and evolution. This paper presents an overview of the work carried out on the use of AE as a monitoring technique to form a comprehensive insight into its potential application in brittle materials. Reported properties in this study are crack growth behavior, localization, damage e

One of the methods used to investigate the damaged zone in rock structure is the acoustic emission method. This method is based on receiving the elastic waves that are produced by deformation and cracking of the rock mass around the underground excavation. In this research, a study is conducted on the rock samples by a numerical method to investigate the damaged zone caused by the excavation of circular space on it. For this purpose, 33 cube samples of three different material types including sandstone, concrete, and cement-plaster mortar are prepared. A circular hole is drilled in the center of each sample. The hole diameter is 20 or 25 mm. The samples are loaded uniaxially or biaxially with different stress rates. It is tried to study the

Brittleness is one of the most important properties of rock which has a major impact not only on the failure process of intact rock but also on the response of rock mass to tunneling and mining projects. Due to the lack of a universally accepted definition of rock brittleness, a wide range of methods, including direct and indirect methods, have been developed for its measurement. Measuring rock brittleness by direct methods requires special equipment which may lead to financial inconveniences and is usually unavailable in most of rock mechanic laboratories. Accordingly, this study aimed to develop a new strength-based index for predicting rock brittleness based on the obtained base form. To this end, an innovative algorithm was developed in

The tensile strength of rocks plays a noteworthy role in their failure mechanism, and its determination can be beneficial in optimizing the design of the rock structures. Schistose rocks due to their inherent anisotropy in different foliation directions show a diverse strength at each direction. The purpose of this work was to compare and assess the tensile strength of phyllite, which was obtained in direct and indirect tensile tests in different foliation directions. To this end, several phyllite specimens with different foliation angles (0?, 30?, 45?, 60?, and 90?) related to the loading axis (β) were prepared. Finally, the direct tensile test, diametrical and axial point load tests, Brazilian test, and Schmidt hammer test were conducted

Blasting ground vibration is an undesirable side effect of using explosives to fragment rocks. There is not any universally accepted standard to determine limitations of blast vibrations; however, velocity is the most commonly used method to measure ground vibrations. Because the structural response is highly frequency dependent, the frequency content is an essential characteristic of blast-induced shock waves along with the velocity. The magnitude of blast-induced displacement or velocity and their relative stress and strain are directly related to the quantity of charge, distance from blasting point, and geological conditions. These effects were not considered in the response spectrum theory of structures. This article tries to propose a

One of the methods used to investigate the damaged zone in rock structure is the acoustic emission method. This method is based on receiving the elastic waves that are produced by deformation and cracking of the rock mass around the underground excavation. In this research, a study is conducted on the rock samples by a numerical method to investigate the damaged zone caused by the excavation of circular space on it. For this purpose, 33 cube samples of three different material types including sandstone, concrete, and cement-plaster mortar are prepared. A circular hole is drilled in the center of each sample. The hole diameter is 20 or 25 mm. The samples are loaded uniaxially or biaxially with different stress rates. It is tried to study the

Plastic concrete is used widely in the construction of cut-off walls. These structures might be exposed to coupled effects of dynamic load along with confining pressure. Therefore, careful study of the impacts of these combined stress conditions is one of the primary issues to be considered in analysis and design. Although there is a large number of experiments on the mechanical properties of plastic concrete in static loading and triaxial condition, none have studied the behavior of this material in dynamic state loading. Therefore, a series of unconfined and triaxial compression tests has been carried out under different confining pressures and strain rates to experimentally investigate the behavior of this material under combined stress

A new development has been proposed to measure the tensile fracture toughness (KIc) of rocks. An innovative configuration of chevron notch was applied acting as a cracked chevron notched direct tension (CCNDT) method to determine the mode I fracture toughness, which also could be suggested as a direct method to specify the tensile fracture toughness. In this method, the initial crack is generally created in the form of a chevron notch by a simple rotary saw, and afterward, the crack is subjected to the direct tensile load. Using the chevron notch in the desired specimen is mainly due to the advantages of the sub-critical crack growth in brittle materials. In the present study, a new expression is proposed to calculate the fracture toughness

Accurate estimation of rock cuttability is crucial for selecting and design of mechanical excavators in mining and civil engineering practices. This study is to introduce the intact rock cuttability index (IRCI) using three simple and easily accessed intact rock microscale parameters. Assuming that an intact rock consists of mineral grains (materials), cement or matrix and pores, three parameters of rock texture coefficient (TC), Cerchar abrasivity index (CAI), and porosity were selected to be included in IRCI equation. Small-scale rock cutting tests with a simple chisel pick were conducted on very low to medium strength rock specimens to calculate the specific energy (SE) as an indicator of rock cuttability. Accordingly, the correlations b

Strain rate investigations are needed to calibrate strain-rate-dependent material models and numerical codes. An appropriate material model, which considers the rate effects, need to be used for proper numerical modeling. The plastic concrete cut-off wall is a special underground structure that acts as a barrier to stop or reduce the groundwater flow. These structures might be subjected to different dynamic loads, especially earthquake. Deformability of a structure subjected to dynamic loads is a principal issue which need to be undertaken during the design phase of these structures. The characterization of plastic concrete behavior under different strain rates is essential for proper designing of cut-off walls subjected to dynamic loads. T

It is well-known that the mechanical behavior of rocks under cyclic loading is much different from static loading conditions. In most constructions, the load applied to structures is within dynamic ranges. That’s why a great deal of attention has been paid to this field to identify the dynamic behavior of rocks in more detail. Nevertheless, the nature of dynamic failure in rocks has not yet been identified, particularly when it comes to cyclic loading The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of grain size on the mechanical behavior of rocks under cyclic loading using numerical modeling by UDEC. A total of three grain-categories with a diameter of 1, 2, and 4 mm were modeled in the software. All models were of Brazilian t

In this paper the effect of bedding layer on the failure mechanism of rock in direct shear test has been investigated using particle flow code, PFC. For this purpose, firstly calibration of pfc2d was performed using Brazilian tensile strength. Secondly direct shear test consisting bedding layer was simulated numerically. Thickness of layers was 10 mm and rock bridge length was 10 mm, 40 mm and 60 mm. In each rock bridge length, bedding layer angles changes from 0 degrees to 90 degrees with increment of 15 degrees. Totally 21 models were simulated and tested. The results show that two types of cracks develop within the model. Shear cracks and tensile cracks. Also failure pattern is affected by bridge length while shear strength is controlle

Seismic assessment of underground structures is one of the challenging problems in engineering design. This is because there are usually many sources of uncertainties in rocks and probable earthquake characteristics. Therefore, for decreasing of the uncertainties, seismic response of underground structures should be evaluated by sufficient number of earthquake records which is scarcely possible in common seismic assessment of underground structures. In the present study, a practical risk-based approach was performed for seismic risk assessment of an unsupported tunnel. For this purpose, Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) was used to evaluate the seismic response of a tunnel in south-west railway of Iran and different analyses were conducted