Numerical study of large-scale pull-out test of horizontal corrugated strips

Abstract

The interaction between soil and geosynthetic plays an important role in the design and analysis of reinforced soil structures. Pullout tests are commonly used to simulate the soil reinforcement interaction mechanism along the interface. Thus, different types of reinforcements are used in these structures and present different behaviours. In this paper, we propose a new kind of reinforcement based on horizontal corrugated strips in order to improve the parameters interfaces between the soil and the reinforcement. To simulate the pullout interaction process of horizontal corrugated strips, we carry out a numerical study using the software package FLAC3D. We have modelled the soil as an elastic-perfectly plastic Mohr Coulomb and the reinforcement as linear elastic geogrid elements. In fact, the most important aim is to explain the horizontal corrugated reinforcement’s behaviour and to investigate the factors that affect the mechanical response (Confining pressure, friction angle, amplitude and number of the waves of the strip). A comparative study is also presented between the horizontal corrugated and planar strips. In our study, the numerical results showed that the confining pressure has significant influence on the interface properties of the horizontal strips corrugated. It also showed that the pullout shear stress on the head of horizontal corrugated strips is higher than the planar reinforcements.