Rock Fracture Mechanics

Intact Rock properties:

•  Physico-mechanical properties of rocks, such as: Density, Bulk Specific Gravity, Porosity, P-Wave Velocity, Water Absorption, Water Content, Void Index, Porosity, Permeability, Hardness and Slake Durability, Uniaxial Compressive Strength, Tensile Strength, Elastic Constants, Cohesion, Friction Angle, Elastic Constants under triaxial stress condition, and Fracture Toughness.
•  Joint properties, such as: Tilt Angle, Basic Friction Angle and Residual Friction Angle, Joint Roughness Coefficient and Joint Wall Compressive Strength, Peak Shear Strength, Normal Stiffness and Shear Stiffness, Cohesion and Friction Angle.
•   Post failure studies under uniaxial and triaxial stress conditions.

Major Equipment

•   Rock block cutting and polishing machine, Rock core drilling, cutting and surface grinding machine.
•   150 ton MTS computer controlled compression testing machine, 200 ton tensile testing machine, 300 ton compression testing machine, Triaxial cell (Hoek and SBEL), Direct shear testing machine for rock joints.
•   P-wave velocity measuring instrument, Hardness tester, Polarizing microscope, Acoustic emission monitoring system.

Specialized facilities

•   Deformation under uniaxial and triaxial stress conditions at elevated temperature (up to 150°C).
•   Post failure studies under uniaxial and triaxial stress conditions.
•   Multiple failure triaxial compression tests.
•   Testing of dimensional stones as per ASTM, European Standards.
•   Fracture toughness as per ISRM standard (Level I & II).
•   Rock joint testing.

Soil Mechanics Laboratory

•   Grain Size Analysis
•   Permeability Test
•   Direct Shear Test
•   Triaxial Testing
•    Consolidation Test

Materials Testing Laboratory

The Centre for Testing Services (CTS) is the prime centre of excellence that is housed at the Registered Office of NIRM, Kolar Gold Fields. The Material Testing Laboratory under CTS is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and manned by trained and experienced professionals. It has capabilities to provide the clientele with accurate and reliable results in par with international standards mainly in the following areas:

•   Destructive tests
•   Non-destructive tests

The destructive tests are conducted on steel wire ropes (diameter range from 8 to 55 mm) conforms to the procedures laid out as per BIS and other national and international standards. The breaking load of steel wire rope samples sent from various mining companies is determined periodically at CTS to determine the residual life of the wire rope. In addition to this, tensile tests, reverse bend tests and torsion tests are conducted on individual wires of the rope samples to determine the change in parametric values.

The non-destructive tests carried out at CTS comprises of different methods such as visual testing, dye-penetrant testing, ultrasonic testing and magnetic particle testing. These tests are requisites for the safe workings of mining and allied industries as per ASTM and Indian standards. Winders, vital mining machinery components, heavy earth moving machineries, large ore/coal handling plants etc are subjected to these NDT tests.

Wire rope defect graph studies are conducted on ropeways, transport systems for men/material movements in underground mines, inclines, passenger car transport systems at hydro-electric project sites, hill stations and pilgrim centres etc., in accordance with prescribed safety standards

Proof load tests are conducted on all prototype mine machinery components immediately after the manufacture to ascertain the efficacy of the predesigned safe working load.

CTS has well chalked out expansion and diversification plans in the area of safety training, safety audit, certification, research and development of safety bench marks for mining, civil and petroleum sectors.