Uplift behavior of shallow horizontal plate anchors reinforced with geocells in cohesionless soil

Abstract

Reduced scale laboratory tests were conducted to assess effects of anchor embedment ratio ($H/B$), geocell width ratio ($B_g/B$), geocell height ratio ($h/B$) and geometrical shapes of anchors on uplift behavior shallow horizontal plate anchors reinforced with/without geocell material in cohesionless soil. It was determined that the effects of geometrical shapes of anchors having equivalent surface area on the uplift behavior of plate anchors with/without geocell reinforcement were negligible. An increase in the $B_g/B$ and $h/B$ of geocell yields to an increase in both the uplift capacity and the residual capacity of anchor of shallow horizontal plate anchors while heave on the soil surface spreads to larger area. The effectiveness of geocell reinforcement was evaluated in terms of improved ratio ($\mathit{UCIR}$) varying from 1.04 to 6.01 at given values of anchor displacement ratio (S/B), $B_g/B,$ $h/B$ and $H/B.$ Simply, optimum geocell width ratio ($B_g/B)$ of 2.4 was obtained. Additionally, failure surface and dispersion angle of anchors obtained via the help of miniature laboratory test were compared with the results of the reduced scale laboratory test. Finally, a theoretical approach was established to predict the uplift capacity of shallow horizontal plate anchors reinforced with/without geocell in cohesionless soil.

Keywords:

• Geocell
• plate anchor
• uplift capacity
• cohesionless soil
• shallow anchor

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr. Ozgur Anil, Tahsin Omur Budak and Adem Isik for their contributions to the work presented in this article.

Data availability statement

Raw data were generated at Gazi University Engineering Faculty Civil Engineering Department-Geotechnical Laboratory. Derived data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author [Kaan Yünkül] on request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.