Ground Anchors

Slope Stability Improvement

Method
CE163 | Eartha B. Becoado

What are Ground Anchors?

Soil or ground anchors
pressure grouted tendons
installed in either cohesive or noncohesive soil or loose rock
anchors transfer forces into the ground
through the pre-stressing steel and
grout body

Components of a Ground
Anchor

The lateral earth pressure distribution:

useful equations

Computation for the location of each

ground anchor

Calculation of anchor loads

What do Ground Anchors

improve?
ground anchors improves the
shearing resistance along the slip
circles, thus increasing it will
reinforce the slope

Types of Ground Anchors

 Straight Shaft Gravity-Grouted

Ground Anchors
Installed in rock and very stiff to hard
cohesive soil deposits
Use of rotary drilling or hollow-stem
auger methods
Anchor resistance depends on shear
resistance at grout or ground interface

 Straight Shaft Pressure-Grouted

Ground Anchors
Most suitable for coarse granular soil
and weak fissured rock
Also used in fine-grained cohesionless
soils
This grouting procedure increases
resistance by increasing the normal
stress and increasing the effective
diameter of the grout bulb

 Post-Grouted Ground Anchors

Use delayed multiple grout injections to
enlarge the grout body of straight
shafted gravity grouted ground anchors
Injections are separated by 1 or 2 days
Use of sealed grout tube installed with
the tendon
Tube is equipped with check valves in
the bond zone

 Underreamed
Consist of tremie grouted boreholes with
series of enlargement bells or
underreams
May be used in firm to hard cohesive
deposits
Resistance may be mobilized thru end
bearings
Extra care is needed to form and clean
underreams

Advantages
problems associated with drilling
anchor holes are eliminated because
the anchor is driven into the soil
economical and a practical
alternative to propping
allows open excavations
versatile form of earth retention
used in a wide variety of soil
conditions

Disadvantages
Horizontal movement can produce
eccentrically applied loads on piers
Can cause piers to topple and the home to
collapse

Vertical movement
Can cause the house to lift and lose contact with
supporting piers
Can approach or even exceed the soils shear
strength
decrease in anchor capacity

Corrosion of anchors

Anchor Construction
Usually constructed
with a circular shaft of
one or more helixes
Anchor shafts are
typically 5/8 inch to
inch in diameter
U shaped anchor
heads for pretensioning
Closed-eyes Head for
cable connections

Anchor Selection
Carefully chosen based on specific soil
conditions
Short anchors with smaller helixes
Firm and well compacted soils

Longer anchors with larger or multiple

helixes
For weaker soils

Torque Probe Tests

used to determine the type of soil and select
the appropriate anchor based on the
recommendation of anchor manufacturers

Anchor Installation
Machine Installed
torque equipment to rotate and advance
the anchors into the supporting soils

Hand Installed
Excavation is involved
Backfilling and compacting of removed
soil
reduction of anchor load capacity due to
disturbance of soil

 Inclination ranges
from 5 to 15 degrees
from the vertical
Installed with
stabilizer plates to
supply additional
lateral resistance for
anchor assembly
Anchor straps are
installed to home
frames and to the
wall ties

Anchor Performance
A function of the soil response to
loads applied to the anchor assembly
Geotechnical considerations
soil type
soil shear strength
load-deformation characteristics
(modulus subgrade reaction or stiffness)
Moisture condition
geometry, anchor depth, anchor
orientation, and direction of load relative
to the orientation

Mechanical drill and ground anchors