Rapid pullout test of soil nail

Abstract

This technical paper describes the rapid pullout response of soil nail embedded in dry clean sand. In the rapid pullout test, soil nail is pullout by a tensile impulse load with loading duration that is long enough to eliminate the influence of the stress wave propagation phenomenon. The results of these experiments showed the influence of loading rate on pullout response is highly dependent on the roughness condition of the nail surface. For rough nail, the prepeak rapid pullout response was significantly stiffer in the load-displacement characteristic and higher in peak pullout strength when compared to the corresponding quasi-static pullout response. While for a smooth nail, a negligible difference between rapid and quasi-static pullout response was noticed. In light of these limited experimental results, the radiation damping effect appears to be the dominant contributor to the enhancements in prepeak rapid pullout response of rough nail. "Actual" damping coefficient that quantifies the damping resistance mobilized in a rapid pullout test was found not to be constant but to decrease with the increase in pullout displacement. © 2008 ASCE.