Soil Nailing With Flexible Structural Facing - Design and Exp

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Soil Nailing with Flexible Structural Facing:

Design and Experiences

Giorgio Giacchetti, Alberto Grimod, and David Cheer

Abstract
Officine Maccaferri has developed BIOS, a simplified as well as realistic design approach
for the calculation of the flexible structural facing of soil nailing. The approach shows that
the most important property of this kind of application is membrane stiffness of the mesh.
With the procedure of BIOS is possible to reduce the timing of design and get a cost
effective intervention. Anyway the designer judgment is required for a better evaluation of
the critical factors like the slope morphology, the admissible displacement and settlement,
the presence of water and erosion processes.

Keywords
Soil nailing  Flexible structural facing

Preliminary Remarks are then grouted and fixed soundly to the ground for their
entire length (nailing). The frequency and the length of the
For years the wire mesh has been frequently utilized as flexible nails must be calculated in accordance with EN 1997 1.
structural facing on soil nailing. The system, known in technical The nailing mobilises friction forces along the entire length
literature as structural flexible facing (Phear et al. 2005), surely and contributes to the improvement of the stability conditions
offers aesthetic advantages and can be successfully utilized over when there are displacements in the soil (Schlosser 2002; Soulas
all for the stabilization of slopes with vegetation. The present 1991; BS 8006; Byrne et al. 1998). The stabilizing friction
paper analyses the general behaviour of the flexible facing and forces are passively generated when the soil rupture starts.
proposes the new calculation approach BIOS (best improve- The protection of the exposed surface of the soil
ment of slopes) which has already widely utilized by the reinforced by the nails is obtained with the facing, the aim
Officine Maccaferri for the design of cuts and natural slopes. of which is to hold the soil between the nails, prevent erosion
phenomena and assume an aesthetic function. Obviously the
facing, within the limits of its intrinsic deformability, can
The Concept of Nailing only collaborate with the passive action of the nails (Fig. 1).
In facts, it is not at all comparable to a stiff structure (e.g.:
The aim of soil nailing is to improve the soil stability when shotcrete or precast elements), which limits the soil displace-
there are unfavourable stability conditions. The stability is ment in an optimal way. The preferential ambit of applica-
achieved by inserting reinforcement bars in the soil, which tion of the structural flexible facing is the natural slope,
where there are not considerable variations of the stress
state and a vegetal protection already lives.
Generally, on slope steeper than 60 the facing has a
G. Giacchetti (*)  A. Grimod
Alpigeo Consultants, Belluno, via Barozzi 45, Bologna, Italy temporary character. Anyway the design of the flexible
e-mail: [email protected] structural facing requires a certain attention in order to
D. Cheer minimize the problems related to the intrinsic properties of
Technichal Department, Officine Maccaferri, Bologna, Italy the meshes and to the limits of their applications.

C. Margottini et al. (eds.), Landslide Science and Practice, Vol. 6, 655


DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-31319-6_83, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
656 G. Giacchetti et al.

Fig. 1 Example of wide punch displacement of flexible structural


facing loaded by the soil. The cables reduced the mesh displacement
Fig. 3 Graphics of puncturing tests (a) on sample 1  1 m in labora-
tory, (b) on samples sized 3  3 m in laboratory, and (c) on samples
3  3 in field facility, in the case of the double twist hexagonal mesh
DT (upper graph) and of the single twist one, higher tensile wire (lower
graph). The displacement depends both on the sample size and the
restrain kind type. It is noticeable the dramatic deformability of the
single twist mesh on site that makes it almost useless as facing

restrained within test frames in a different way (Ruegger


and Flumm 2000; Bonati and Galimberti 2004; Muhunthan
et al. 2005). The most interesting tests have been developed
in Pont Boset (Aosta – Italia), where a realistic restrain
constituted by a raster 3.0  3.0 m of nails, frequently
adopted for the consolidation of rocky and soil slopes, and a
punch device dipping 45 on the mesh plane (Fig. 2) were
implemented (Bertolo et al. 2007, 2009). The following
analyses show first of all, both the scarce meaning of the
laboratory tests with small size samples, and the necessity
to reproduce the restrain condition in which the meshes are
applied (Majoral et al. 2008). Secondly, the results show that
the meshes develop an appreciable contrast after they reach a
displacement of several decimetres with null load. For exam-
ple, the displacement load is worth 0.4 m in the case of the
double twist mesh with inscribed circle diameter 83 mm and
wire 500 MPa, and 0.8 m in the case of the single twist mesh,
with inscribed circle diameter 65 mm and wire 1,770 MPa
(Fig. 3). In that condition, it is manifest that whilst a soil
displacement trigger the nails work (passive intervention),
the facing does not yet offer a stabilizing contribution; actu-
Fig. 2 Test facility of Pont Boset developed by Technical University of ally it will start when the displacements are few decimeters.
Torino in cooperation with Officine Maccaferri (Bertolo et al. 2009)

Limits of the Mesh Application


Intrinsic Properties of the Meshes
In spite the evidences on site do not confirm it at all or
The punch tests are fundamentals for the modelling of the contradict it, it is quite frequently believed that the pre
meshes applied on soil nailing. In these terms, several authors stretching of the facing allows to develop active pressures
carried out tests with samples having different sizes and which contribute to the slope stabilization.
Soil Nailing with Flexible Structural Facing: Design and Experiences 657

– The difference of behaviour between meshes basically


depends upon the kind of fabric, and not upon the steel
grade of the constitutive wire; the choice of a mesh to be
utilized as facing must take into account of the fabric
properties and not simply of the wire ones.
– The tensile stress stretching the meshes are almost always
Fig. 4 The forces due to the prestress – if any – act tangentially to the
surface. The resultants vectors developed on the edges, are absolutely
three times lower than the nominal tensile resistance of
negligible the facing. Then the tensile resistance has marginal
importance in the mesh choice.
The pre-stretching of the facing is theoretically carried out – The membrane stiffness plays a primary role into the
pre-tensioning the nails; that is got whether screwing down facing choice: the higher the stiffness is, the more effec-
the nut on the nail plate, so that the mesh is pushed into the tiveness the facing is.
concavities of the ground surfaces (likewise the quilt pushes – The overlapping of a cable net on the mesh facing is
on the mattress), or tangentially stretching the mesh on the always recommendable. The cable netting, which is
edges of the revetment. In the first case, the nails stretching much more stiffer than the mesh, reduces the membrane
does not determine advantages, since to any pressure of the deformability and really helps to distribute the stress of
plate on the mesh, necessarily corresponds an equals and the meshes by the nails. That is why a mesh with cables
contrary force which tries to lift the nail (Fig. 4); it follows woven in the fabric surely performs the best.
that any stabilizing force is developed into the geotechnical – With the structural flexible facing, the nails could have a
system. In the second case, the pre stretching could be certain difficulty to cooperate each others in the consoli-
implemented on planar surfaces in principle, but if the nails dation. That is why the nail spacing should be reduced to
are already installed, or if the ground surface is just uneven, no more than 1.0–1.5 m (Joshi 2003). With larger
on facts it became impossible to obtain because of the spacing, each anchor does its work as single, lonely
frictions on the asperities (Ferraiolo and Giacchetti 2004). reinforcement and the flexible structural facing shades
In both these cases, the intrinsic deformability of the mesh to soft facing (Phear et al. 2005). The spacing should
invalidates the effect of the pre-stretching (Fig. 3). not anyhow exceeds 3.0 m. In order to control the exces-
At last it should be remembered that, even if it was sive deformability of the facing, intermediate auxiliary
possible to pre-stretch the mesh, the developed forces anchors could be always introduced among the deep ones
would be tangential to the mesh plane, and some pressure (Phear et al. 2005)
could be developed against the protuberance of the ground
surface only (Fig. 4). However they are non relevant
pressures, so that it is possible to lift the mesh from the
Simplified Approach: BIOS
ground contact, simply using the fingers. In a certain way,
the mesh allows to enlarge the contacts surface of the anchor
The design of the nails for the soil nailing can easily devel-
plate (Besseghini et al. 2008) but, always because the above
oped with several calculation procedures.
reasons, that increment remains absolutely negligible.
After the nailing has been calculated, the structural flexi-
ble facing can be calculated. Nevertheless such verification
is not at all simple, since it requires the utilization of com-
Some Implications plicated numerical models, with effort and consumed time
not reasonable in the design praxis, overall if the design is
Some important implications for the design approach of the aimed to interventions of modest size. Because of that, at the
structural flexible facing came out as corollary of the above: present, the Limit equilibrium methods are preferable which
– From the geotechnical point of view, the mesh absolutely are necessarily very simplifying even if they consider in a
has a passive behaviour. It cannot be modelled as certain way the displacement. In the approach “Best
shotcrete which is fit to transmit almost uniform pressures Improvement of Slopes” (BIOS) the loads transmitted by
on the ground surface by means of the nails. the ground to the facing have been calculated with the “two
– Taking into account of the mesh displacement, the strip- wedges method”, while the displacements are extrapolated
ping becomes the most insidious rupture way. It is better via the experimental results of the punch tests. The solution
to attribute null or a negligible bearing capacity to plate would require a finite element analysis, but a realistic solu-
and mesh system. All the more reason, the utilization of tion can be find maximizing the forces acting on the geo-
tie back anchors on the meshes become unadvisable: they technical system. Obviously the procedure quite rough, but it
would scarcely be functional, or ineffective. is more than enough considering the low accuracy level of
658 G. Giacchetti et al.

the input data, the reliability of the results and the velocity of
calculation.
BIOS develops the analysis of the facing in four stages
(in appendix there is the calculation procedure):
1. Verification of the input data: this first stage analyses the
slope behaviour in the short term in order to verify that
the safety factor of the slope between two nails is greater
than 1.0 (Fs > 1.0). The procedure allows to control the
quality of the geotechnical input data and, in case, to
correct them, adjusting the geotechnical parameters or
changing the nail spacing.
2. Verification of the instable volume: the software
simulates the soil softening which happens in the long
term. For that, the progressive reduction of the resis-
tance parameters c0 e j0 is carried out up to the resisting
Fig. 5 Displacement models with the segments of deformed mesh
forces are equals to the driving forces (FS ¼ 1). The
procedure allows to determine the maximum instable
volume of soil which can move down between the development of simplified calculation approach. Further
nails (Fig. 2). investigations are needed for a better comprehension of the
3. Ultimate limit state: the maximum volume of soil that can interaction between nail and mesh and for implementing
move between the nails (see previous point 2) is com- more accurate behaviour models of the flexible facing.
pared to the minimum one needed to break down the
mesh. If the volume between the nails is smaller than
the one that breaks down the mesh, then the mesh fulfil Appendix: Stability and Displacement of the
the problem; on contrary, the facing does not satisfy the Mesh
problem.
4. Serviceability limit state: this stage analyzes the mesh Officine Maccaferri has developed the software BIOS for the
displacement by means of the curves load–displacement. automatic computation of the mesh capacity which uses the
The graphics allows to determine the volume of soil “two wedge method” for the calculation of the instable soil
related to the maximum admissible displacement. If that mass, in the hypothesis that the two wedges lye within the
volume is larger than the one waited on the long term, the space delimitated by two adjacent nails; in order to maxi-
facing satisfy the requirements of design. The maximum mize the driving force, the software automatically searches
design displacement is assumed upon one or more geo- the worst wedges combination. It is assumed that the debris
technical criterion (effects of the mesh displacement develops distributed load on the facing, so that the total force
on the stripping, triggering erosion processes, effects acting shall be (Fig. 6):
of settlements induced in the neighbour), functional
(maximum encumbrance of debris pockets) and aesthetic. T tot ¼ T 1 þ T 2 (1)

where:
Next Developments
½ðW 1 þQ1 Þ ðtany1 tanf0 1 Þþ ðU 1 tanf0 1 K 1 Þ=cosy1 
T1 ¼
The flexible structural facing represents a very interesting ð1þtany1 tanf0 1 Þ
solution since it offers several technological and environ- (2)
mental advantages. The tests on site showed many applica-
tive limits of the flexible facing and allowed the

½ðW 2 þ Q2 Þ  ðtany2  ls  tanf0 2 Þ þ ls  ðU2  tanf0 2  K 2 Þ=cosy2 


T2 ¼ (3)
ð1 þ ls  tany2  tanf0 2 Þ
Soil Nailing with Flexible Structural Facing: Design and Experiences 659

Fig. 6 Geotechnical model with wedges

Fig. 7 Geotechnical model with instable soil divided in elemental


where: areas
W1 (kN) Weight of wedge 1;
W2 (kN) Weight of wedge 2; Ltot ¼ L þ e  L (5)
Q1 (kN) Overload acting on wedge 1;
Q2 (kN) Overload acting on wedge 2; where:
y1 ( ) Angle at the base of wedge 1; e percentage deformation under failure conditions
y2 ( ) Angle at the base of wedge 2; obtained from large scale puncturing tests and tension;
U1 (kN) Resultant of the pressure of the water acting at the L distance of the mesh between two nails in a direction
base of wedge 1; parallel to the slope.
U2 (kN) Resultant of the pressure of the water acting at the – The area of the section corresponding to the sack is equal
base of wedge 2; to that of the circular sector with an angle at the centre
K1 (kN) Cohesion force acting at the base of wedge 1; equal to (p + a) and radius r (Fig. 7);
K2 (kN) Cohesion force acting at the base of wedge 2;
ls Slip factor at the base. The area 1 is obtained by resolving the following system
of equations:
The safety factor is calculated with:

K 1 þ K 2 þ ðW 1  cosðy1 Þ  U 1 Þ  tan f0 1 þ ðW 2  cosðy2 Þ  U 2 Þ  tan f0 2


FS ¼ (4)
W 1  seny1 þ W 2  seny2

In order to calculate ultimate limit state deformation of


the mesh, the following initial assumptions apply:
L þ e  L ¼ X þ ðP þ aÞ  r þ ðX  LÞ (6)
– The deformed shape is divided into three sections
(Fig. 5): the first limb, rectilinear, with length X inclined  a
with an angle a with respect to the slope, the angle of r ¼ X  tg (7)
2
which is indicated by b; the second limb, curved, with
length (p + a) r that characterises the sack shape of the ð1 þ cosaÞ
P ¼ T amm  (8)
soil; the third limb, rectilinear, lies on the slope, with the senb  cosb  tand
same inclination and a length X  L;
– The second stretched limb is tangential to both the first P¼gV (9)
and third limbs of the mesh;
– The mesh, completely stretched, deforms and reaches a
maximum length at the failure limit of not more than:
660 G. Giacchetti et al.

ðP þ aÞ  r 2
AREA1 ¼ þXr References
2
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
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meccanica di un sistema corticale attivo per il consolidamento di
X versanti di terreno. Rivista GEAM Geoingegneria ambientale
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C¼X (14) Byrne RJ, Cotton D, Porterfield J, Wolshlag C, Ueblacker G (1998)
Manual for design & construction monitoring of soil nail walls. U.S.
Department of transportation, Federal Highway Administration,
where:
FHWA A-SA-96-06R, Washington DC
EN 1997 1 (2005) Eurocode 7: Geotechnical design, Part 1: General rules
L (m) Length of the mesh;
Ferraiolo F, Giacchetti G (2004) “Rivestimenti corticali: alcune
g (kN/m3) Unit weight of soil; considerazioni sull’applicazione delle reti di protezione in parete
b ( ) Angle of inclination of the slope; rocciosa” in atti “Bonifica dei versanti rocciosi per la difesa del
j’a ( ) Friction angle of the soil; territorio,” Trento 2004, Peila D. Editor
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structures. J Geotech Geoenviron Eng 129(9):819–828, ASCE
EA (kN) Axial stiffness of the mesh;
Majoral R, Giacchetti G, Bertolo P (2008) Las mallas en la
Tmax (kN/m) Maximum tensile strength of the mesh; estabilizaciòn de taludes. II Curso sobre protecciòn contra caida
Fsmesh Factor of safety of the mesh; de rocas, Madrid, 26–27 de Febrero, Organiza STMR Servicios
Tamm (kN/m) Permissible tensile strength of the mesh; técnicos de mecànica de rocas
e Maximum percentage deformation of the mesh. Muhunthan B, Shu S, Sasiharan N, Hattamleh OA, Badger TC, Lowell
SM, Duffy JD (2005) Analysis and design of wire mesh/cable net
slope protection. Final Research Report WA-RD 612.1. Washington
State Transportation Commission Department of Transportation/U.S.
Area 2 is determined by: Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration
Phear A, Dew C, Ozsoy B, Wharmby NJ, Judge J, Barley AD (2005)
A2  senðy1  bÞ  senðb  f0 Þ Soil nailing – Best practice guidance. CIRIA C637, London
AREA2 ¼ (15) Ruegger R, Flumm D (2000) High performance steel wire mesh for
2  senð180  y1 þ f0 Þ surface protection in combination with nails and anchors. Contribu-
tion to the 2nd colloquium “Construction in soil and rock,” Acad-
Area 3 is the difference between the volume of long-term emy of Esslingen (Germany)
unstable soil and area 2. The total volume thereby obtained Schlosser F (Chairman) (2002) Additif 2002 aux recommandations clouterre
1991 pour la conception, le calcul, l’exécution et le controle des
must be compared with the unstable volume under the long- soustènements realises par cluage des soil. Presses Ponts et chaussées
term conditions; if the unstable volume is greater than that Soulas R (Chairman) (1991) Recommandations clouterre 1991 pour la
necessary for failure of the mesh, the flexible facing will be conception, le calcul, l’exécution et le controle des soustènements
put at risk. realises par cluage des soil. Presses Ponts et chaussées

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