ABSTRACT
Glass Fibre Reinforced Plastic (GFRP) has been used for many years in tunnelling, primarily for temporary applications due to the ease of cutting. GFRP has many other advantages such as its light weight and its lower environmental impact. GFRP also has excellent durability characteristics. Permanent GFRP rock bolts have been used successfully in demanding situations. One obstacle to the more widespread adoption for permanent applications has been a concern over its performance in shear. Data from full scale shear tests on rockbolts is presented here. A new design method is described to account for the benefit of the bolts in resisting shearing on joints. An example calculation with a numerical model is presented, showing how this design method can be used to demonstrate that GFRP bolts function as well as steel bolts in a typical Nordic case in terms of resisting both tensile and shear loading from the rock mass.
