Numerical Simulation of Vertical Pullout of Plate Anchors in Clay

Abstract

The behavior of strip and circular plate anchors during vertical pullout in uniform and normally consolidated clays was studied in this paper by means of small strain and large deformation finite-element analyses. Both fully bonded (attached), and “vented” (no suction on rear face), anchors were considered. The current numerical results were compared with existing laboratory test data, finite-element results, and analytical solutions. This study showed that, in small strain analysis, the scatter of existing data was mainly due to the effect of soil stiffness. In large deformation analysis, when soil and anchor base were attached with suction, the pullout capacity factor formed a unique curve independent of the soil strength ( su ) , soil effective unit weight ( γ′ ) and anchor size ( B =width of strip anchor and D =diameter of circular anchor). The transitional embedment depth ratio, HSD ∕B or HSD ∕D , (where HSD =transition depth between shallow and deep embedment) was 1.4 for a strip anchor and 0.75 for...