Effect of Geosynthetics Position on Shallow Anchor Uplift Capacity

The plate anchor uplift capacity using geosynthetics was investigated in the present research study. The 1 g laboratory pullout model tests were carried out in the test tank having dimensions of 1000 mm × 1000 mm × 1000 mm using a circular shape anchor size (D) of 100 mm. The embedment depth of plate anchors in a sand bed having a relative density of 70% was 400 mm. Two numbers of polypropylene geotextiles having each size (Bg) of 2D were used to improve plate anchor’s uplift capacity. Two different model tests were performed by maintaining the vertical spacing (h) of 0.5D from the anchor plate above placed geotextile and placing the two numbers of geotextiles directly above the anchor plate i.e., h = 0.0D. The present test results reveal that the geotextiles which were placed directly above the anchor plate (0.0D) show a higher improvement in comparison to the spaced geotextiles (0.5D). It could be due to the influence of reinforcement tensile stiffness property which plays a vital role as compared to the reinforcement’s interface frictional property.