Construction Design and Maintenance Measures for Underground

Concrete Construction

Fenglan Tian

, Donghai Bai

Department of Material and Engineering, Inner Mongolia Vocational College of Chemical Engineering, Hohhot, Inner

Mongolia, 010010, China

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

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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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

University:Social Science Edition, 2012(3): 137-140.

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