Compressive Strength Testing of Toughskin Thin Spray-On Liner

Thin spray-on liners (TSLs) have been attracting more and more attention as an alternative to the steel mesh in underground roadway support. In order to investigate and compare the compressive strength of glass fibre reinforced ToughSkin TSL developed at the University of Wollongong, a compression test was developed using the cube samples of 40 mm in size. The effect of a small amount of glass fibre in the polymer matrix was tested. The test results indicate that the compressive strength and the material stiffness of the cube samples increased with the increase of glass fibre. All of samples exhibited ductile stress strain curve as they had a yield point and a fracture point. The ductile ToughSkin yield characteristics are very important as sudden brittle failure is considered unsafe for mining practices.