Construction Design and Maintenance Measures for Underground
Concrete Construction
Fenglan Tian
1
, Donghai Bai
2
1
Department of Material and Engineering, Inner Mongolia Vocational College of Chemical Engineering, Hohhot, Inner
Mongolia, 010010, China
2
Vocational Counsel, Inner Mongolia Vocational College of Chemical Engineering, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, 010010,
China
Keywords: Concrete, building, construction design, maintenance measures.
Abstract: The coal production operations are mainly concentrated in the mine shafts under the ground. For the
architectural design of the mine shafts, many factors should be considered to ensure safety and normal
production of coal. Currently, as regards China's coal production environment, the design of mine shaft is
mainly on basis of its firmness and corrosion resistance. However, in the daily course of construction,
maintenance measures for underground building still need to be considered. Therefore, the focus of this
article is to analyze the construction design for underground concrete building and explore the main
measures for the maintenance and operation of the mine.
1 INTRODUCTION
The level of industry is an important symbol of a
country's comprehensive strength. Therefore, the
importance of industrial development is obvious.
The energy resources such as coal and oil etc., as the
basis for industry guarantee the development of
industries. The production status of energy resources
can directly affect the industrial level. In addition,
many rare metal mineral resources also play an
important role in industrial development. Yet mining
of coal and rare metal minerals usually require mine
shafts. In the past, there was not enough
understanding of mine construction to a certain
extent, affecting mining efficiency in actual
production. In the early times, due to lack of
funding, foreign companies and investment were
attracted, in hope of promoting China's economic
development with foreign funds and the rich mineral
resources were the main driving force for foreign
companies to come into China (Li Jing, 2012). Until
now, the exploitation of resources through the mine
shafts remains the main driving force of economic
growth, but by the survey it’s found that companies
attach more importance to productivity and
economic benefits than to the construction of mines,
which didn’t only influence mining efficiency, but
also resulted in some safety incidents.
2 CURRENT STATE OF
CONSTRUCTION DESIGN FOR
CHINA’S UNDERGROUND
CONCRETE BUILDINGS
2.1 Features of Underground Concrete
Buildings
Underground buildings compared with ordinary
concrete buildings are particular. Especially for
some deep shaft buildings, the concrete needs to
withstand greater pressure. The mine shafts as
auxiliary facilities provide the channel for
exploitation and transportation, besides, with some
special buildings, the efficiency of mining can be
improved. In actual process, the underground
concrete buildings should vary according to different
resources. For instance, in the mining of coal
resources, the safety measures like fire prevention
must be taken into account. As for mining of rare
minerals, the mining efficiency must be paid more
attention (Ren Jinlong, Zhang Jian and Zhang Long,
103
Tian F. and Bai D.
Construction Design and Maintenance Measures for Underground Concrete Construction.
DOI: 10.5220/0006444701030106
In ISME 2016 - Information Science and Management Engineering IV (ISME 2016), pages 103-106
ISBN: 978-989-758-208-0
Copyright
c
2016 by SCITEPRESS Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
103
2012). The deeper the resources are stored the
greater load should the building bear, thus the
correspondingly thicker concrete. China is vast in
territory and rich in resources. There are large
numbers of mine facilities. Adjustment should be
made according to different geological and
geographical conditions. In the process of the
excavation of the mine shafts, if the favorable
geological and geographical conditions could be
made use of, it can largely improve the efficiency of
construction, such as the use of layer with larger
bearing capacity which could reduce the bearing
load of the respective building. So the most
conspicuous feature of underground concrete
buildings is the bearing capacity.
2.2 Factors Affecting Construction
Design of Underground Concrete
Buildings
Many factors need to be considered, with regard to
the underground concrete buildings, such as the
resources to be exploited, geological and
geographical conditions, etc. Factors should be taken
into full consideration in construction design. The
first is the geological condition. As the discovery of
mineral resources require certain exploration
methods. There will be a detailed geological and
geographical information report in the exploration
process and this report contains the information of
layer formation and resource reserve, etc. In
addition, the construction design would differ
according to different resources (Cheng Hong, Lin
Shuai, Wang Shibing, Lu Qiwei, Yang Zijing and
Xintian, 2012). Especially for some flammable or
toxic resources exploitation, it’s quite different from
the ordinary underground buildings, and no
flammable materials should be used. Also corrosion
resistance must be considered so that the
construction quality can be ensured to maximum
extent. In order to improve the mining efficiency,
the mechanical equipment should also be considered
in the construction design, such as placement of
equipment facilities. If the design and construction
could be based on the existing equipment, the
efficiency in use of equipment could somehow be
improved. In addition to these factors, the quality
level of a designer is also an important factor which
influences the construction design of underground
concrete buildings. Only the personnel with high
quality can reach a scientific and rational
construction design on the basis of these above
factors. Survey shows that the average quality of
construction designer in China is still low and
foreign designers are employed for many large
underground concrete buildings.
3 MEASURES FOR
CONSTRUCTION DESIGN OF
UNDERGROUND CONCRETE
BUILDINGS
3.1 Quality Improvement of the
Designers
In order to improve the situation of underground
concrete building fundamentally, it’s critical to
ensure that the designers are of adequate
professional quality and well aware of all the factors
influencing the design. However, the quality of a
designer is decided by the education. With the
current situation of China's education system, the
quality of designers is low. Obviously the education
system reform can’t be completed in a short period.
Under such circumstance, companies can train their
designers to learn from the western countries.
Surveys show that the construction designs of
underground concrete buildings in developed
countries are comprehensively considered. Besides
factor of production efficiency, the safety for
personnel and production is also paid much
attention. Designers gained comprehensive
knowledge in colleges or universities, but they didn't
have any design experiences. When they first
entered their company, they learned design from
experienced staff, and then they started to design
some small part of the construction. In contrast,
many enterprises in China have adopted this model,
it is difficult for new entrants who just graduated
from college to calm down to learn from the
experienced staff, thinking that they could design
underground buildings independently. It causes the
age of China’s high-quality designers to be relatively
high. In order to change this situation, a reward
mechanism might be introduced to give a certain
reward to those who complete a stage of learning.
3.2 The System for Design Check
To ensure the construction design of underground
concrete building is scientific and perfect, not only
should the designer be of certain level of quality,
taking into account various factors, but also the
design should be checked after it is completed. If the
conditions permit, advanced computer-based
simulation technology is advised, and the
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construction shall be carried out when no problems
are found in the simulation. In the phase of design
check, in addition to find out the existing problems
in the design, it’s also helpful to optimize the design.
If the inspectors for design check are not the
designers, there would be differences in
understanding of the design, and the inspectors can
optimize the design according to their own
understanding. so ensuring the design is reasonable
to the maximum. Especially, the design of large
underground concrete building is a complicated
work, requiring long period, during which, some
advanced construction technologies may appear and
these technologies can be used in the design for
optimization in the check stage. It’s obvious that the
design check weighs heavily in ensuring it is
scientific and reasonable. For a comprehensive
check of the design, a perfect checking system
should be formed. Firstly, the inspectors should be
themselves designers with rich experience, and then
they should be divided into several groups and each
group reviews a part of the whole design. During the
check, they could propose their remedy, and discuss
with the designers during modification.
4 MAINTENANCE MEASURES
FOR UNDERGROUND
CONCRETE BUILDINGS
4.1 The Problems in the Maintenance
of Underground Concrete
Buildings
After completion of the concrete building, certain
precaution must be carried out to ensure the longest
service life and the maximum bearing capacity of
the building. And when quality problems occur,
maintenance is required. As underground buildings
are particular, especially with the use of large
mechanical equipment, the concrete buildings are
often seriously worn yet the companies in China
have not paid enough attention to the maintenance of
the buildings. When problems happen, the bearing
capacity of the whole building shall be reduced if
they are not timely maintained. In some serious
cases, accidents were caused. Facts show that
China's underground concrete buildings were not
timely repaired when they were worn. Especially the
less important buildings are repaired only during
regular large scale maintenance. However, in
western countries, the underground concrete
buildings are immediately repaired as long as the
damage is discovered. For some sensitive parts, even
experiments in mechanics are carried out and better
materials are used to repair damages to ensure the
safety. It’s clear that maintenance not timely carried
out is the main problem in China’s underground
concrete buildings at present. Although for some
important buildings, the damages were repaired
promptly, the materials and the technique used are
relatively simple. Buildings could not even meet its
original strength, thus resulting in bad influence on
the safety of the whole building and re-damage of
these repaired parts in future use. Therefore, in the
process of maintaining underground concrete
buildings, problem identification must be carefully
carried out to ensure that measures are taken
accordingly to solve the problems. And the safety of
underground buildings is thus guaranteed. As for the
problem solving process, comprehensive analysis on
basis of the design and the actual construction
conditions are required to ensure successful problem
solving.
4.2 Maintenance Measures for
Underground Concrete Buildings
If timely maintenance needs to be performed when
problems happen to the underground concrete
buildings, there must be a perfect maintenance
system. And it must be guaranteed to be practiced
with a strict reward and punishment mechanism. The
first thing of the system is the discovery of
problems, and currently the problems of
underground concrete buildings are mainly found
out by two means, one is the report from staff and
the other by maintain personnel from regular
inspection. After a problem is found, close analysis
should be conducted on cause of the damage of
buildings and the effect on the mine production.
According to the influence to the production,
different maintenance mechanism is used, for
example, if the problem is of considerable
importance, it should be responded to in the shortest
time. In addition to keeping the maintained part with
sufficient strength, in order to ensure the safety of
underground concrete buildings, regular
maintenance should be conducted and potential
hazards should be identified to keep the underground
concrete buildings at their optimum state thus the
prolonged service life. It can be seen from above
that a good maintenance system, do not only ensure
the integrity of the building, but also, at the same
time, greatly improves production efficiency and
safety of mine production and personnel. And the
implementation of maintenance system relies on the
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Construction Design and Maintenance Measures for Underground Concrete Construction
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corresponding reward and punishment mechanism.
Punish those who damage the building and reward
those who protect it. A perfect reward and
punishment mechanism is the key to successful
implementation of maintenance measures. As in the
process of maintenance by a team, it is very
important to mobilize their initiative. Only when the
construction personnel are positive and initiative
could they deal with problems of their own accord in
the maintenance process, and the total independent
operational mode is achieved to some extent.
5 CONCLUSIONS
Mine shafts as auxiliary facilities play an important
role in exploitation of underground resources. And
the constructions of underground concrete buildings
do not only affect the production efficiency directly,
but also weighs heavily in the safety of production.
We could know from the article that, as regards
production in mine in the past, lacking of knowledge
of the underground buildings, some accidents
happened to the personnel and equipment greatly
affected the company benefits. In order to avoid this
problem fundamentally, all factors must be
considered and a perfect maintenance system should
be made for the construction design of underground
concrete buildings.
REFERENCES
Cheng Hong, Lin Shuai, Wang Shibing, Lu Qiwei, Yang
Zijing, Xintian. The design and realization of a highly
reliable emergency power supply for auxiliary fan of
mine shaft, Coal Engineering, 2012 (05): 15-17.
Li Jing, Crevice prevention in mass concrete construction,
Transport Standard, 2012 (21): 21-23.
Ren Jinlong, Zhang Jian, Zhang Long. Organization and
management of mass concrete casting in overlength
foundation slab, Architecture Technology, 2012 (11):
977-980.
Zhang Xiaojie, Xu Jianxin, Du Shuo, Xu Chuanzhi.
Stability evaluation of foundation for coal mine gob
site constructions, Journal of Hebei Polytechnic
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