An Analytical Model to Predict the Push-Out Capacity of Mortar from Rock Block

Abstract

Ground anchors have been very practical in a wide range of geotechnical structures. Good bond properties at the anchor-mortar and mortar-rock interfaces can ensure transmitting an applied tensile load to a load bearing structure efficiently. The bond performance between the mortar and rock is necessary to be studied. A push-out test of mortar from rock block can be used to analyze the interfacial properties between the two materials. In this paper, an analytical model is proposed to determine the push-out capacity of mortar from rock block. Based on the deformation compatibility at the interface, the compressive stress in the mortar and the interfacial shear stress at the mortar-rock interface are formulated at different loading stages. By modeling interfacial debonding as an interfacial shear crack, the push-out load is then expressed as a function of the interfacial crack length. In virtue of the Lagrange Multiplier Method, the maximum push-out load is determined. The validity of the proposed model is verified with the experimental results. It can be concluded that if the interfacial parameters at the mortar-rock interface are obtained, the push-out capacity of mortar from rock block can be accurately determined using the proposed model. The proposed solution in this paper would provide a good theoretical basis in evaluating the stability of ground anchors in practice.