The six-degree-of-freedom behavior of drag embedment anchor installed in clay

ABSTRACT

This study investigated five parameters relevant to the kinematic behaviours of drag embedment anchors (DEAs), including the fluke-shank angle, the initial depth, the line thickness, the installation angle and the loading rate. A six-degree-of-freedom magnetometer system with a magnetic sensor was applied to simultaneously record the movement and orientation of the model anchor. Five groups of drag embedment tests were performed in clay with a linearly increasing shear strength profile. The anchor trajectories, pitch angles and installation load in each group were systematically compared and sufficiently analysed. This study contributes a further understanding of the kinematic behaviours of the DEA during embedment and provides a possible optimising guide in the future design of the DEA.

KEYWORDS:

• Drag embedment anchor
• six-degree-of-freedom tracking system
• anchor embedment
• kinematic behaviour
• model test

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Data availability

Some or all data, models or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51890912).