Geological Core Ground Reorientation Technology Application on In Situ Stress Measurement of an Over-Kilometer-Deep Shaft

Abstract

As mining progresses to depth, engineering activities face the extreme challenge of high in situ stress. To efficiently measure the deep in situ stress before engineering excavation, an innovative deep in situ stress measurement method capable of the geological core ground reorientation technology and acoustic emission (AE) technology was proposed. With this method, nonorientation geological cores collected from the thousand-meter-deep borehole were reoriented based on the spatial spherical geometry model and borehole bending measurement principle. The distribution of deep in situ stress of an over-kilometer-deep shaft in the Xiangxi gold mine was investigated with real-time synchronized MTS 815 material testing machine and PCI-II AE instrument. The results show that the in situ stress changes from being dominated by horizontal stress to being dominated by vertical stress with depth. The horizontal maximum principal stress and vertical stress gradually increase with depth and reach a high-stress level (greater than 25 MPa) at a depth of 1000 m. The direction of the maximum principal stress is near the north. Meanwhile, to analyze the accuracy of the measured in situ stress comparatively, the stress relief measurements were performed at a depth of 655–958 m in the mine, using the Swedish LUT rock triaxial in situ stress measurement system. The distribution of deep in situ stress obtained by the stress relief method agrees well with that by the AE method, which proves the reliability of the AE in situ stress testing method based on the geological core ground reorientation technology.