Experimental Investigation on Effect of Soil Consistency on Pullout Behavior of Plate Anchors in Reinforced Clay

Abstract

Plate anchors are foundation structures used in transmission towers, retaining walls, and submerged pipelines to resist the pullout forces. This article outlines the influence of soil consistency on the pullout behavior of plate anchors buried in reinforced clay. The experimental tests are carried out in unreinforced and reinforced soil conditions at different consistency index of soil (Ic = 0.15 to 0.6). The square plate anchors are placed at embedment ratios (H/B) 1 to 6 and loaded vertically. In reinforced soil conditions, a single-layer reinforcement in the form of a geotextile sheet is positioned at a depth of 0.25 H above the anchor, where H is the embedment depth of the plate anchor measured from the ground surface. The size of geotextile sheet is taken as four times the width of the anchor plate. The embedded plate anchor is subjected to monotonic pull, at a rate of loading 3.5 mm/min. The applied displacement and the corresponding pullout loads are recorded. The variation of pullout capacity and breakout factors with embedment ratios and consistency index are presented. It is found that the inclusion of geotextile reinforcement increases the resistance against pullout load with less ultimate displacement of anchor. The ultimate pullout capacity of the plate anchor was considerably enhanced with an increase in the consistency index of the soil.