Development of a Unique Test Apparatus to Conduct Axial and Transverse Pullout Testing on Geogrid Reinforcements
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 33, Issue 1
Abstract
In the design of reinforced soil structures, the pullout resistance of reinforcement embedded in the fill material is an important input parameter. Different pullout test setups have been proposed previously to determine the axial pullout resistances of reinforcements. In the present study, the details of a unique test apparatus with the ability to conduct both axial and transverse pullout testing of different types of reinforcement was highlighted. The pullout resistances of different geogrids embedded in uniform dense sand beds were presented. Based on extensive axial pullout testing on five different geogrids of varying tensile strengths and aperture sizes under three different normal stresses, empirical equations were proposed to estimate the axial pullout resistances of geogrids at two front-end pullout displacements. The estimated pullout resistances from the proposed equations were found to be in close agreement with the pullout resistances of a sixth geogrid considered in the present study and with the two other studies reported in the literature. A sensitivity analysis was carried out to determine the key parameters influencing the pullout resistance of the geogrid. For the different geogrids tested in dense sand, the axial pullout resistance factors were found to range from 0.34 to 1.97 and 0.52 to 2.05, corresponding to the reinforcement front-end displacements of 30 and 50 mm.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the published article.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to express their gratitude to Techfab India (India) and Strata Geosystems Pvt. Ltd. (India) for their support in providing the geogrids used in the study. The last author would like to acknowledge the support for his role in this research by the Australian Research Council Industrial Transformation Training Centre for Advanced Technologies in Rail Track Infrastructure (IC170100006).
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Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 33 • Issue 1 • January 2021
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 9, 2019
Accepted: Jun 15, 2020
Published online: Oct 21, 2020
Published in print: Jan 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Mar 21, 2021
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