Western University

1151 Richmond St, London, ON N6A 3K7

GROUND ANCHORING SYSTEMS

Road widening project along the Salmon River Road

Design of an Anchored, Cast-in-Place, Backfilled Retaining Wall

Submitted by:

Veerappan S. 250936308

Vishavjit Singh 250905421

Under the guidance of:

Dr. Abouzar Sadrekarimi

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Contents
Contents ........................................................................................................................................................ 2
1. Abstract: ............................................................................................................................................ 3
2. Design and Analysis........................................................................................................................... 4
2.1 Problem definition: .............................................................................................................................. 4

2.2 Site description and assumptions: ........................................................................................................ 4

2.3 Design.................................................................................................................................................. 8
2.4 Computer design and input/output parameters: ............................................................................... 8
2.4.1 Input parameters ............................................................................................................................... 9

2.4.2 Output Parameters .......................................................................................................................... 10

2.4.3 Anchor design loads ....................................................................................................................... 11

2.4.4 Deflection profile using GeoStudio:................................................................................................ 13

2.5 Anchor bond design ........................................................................................................................... 14

2.6 Proposed free length, inclination and corrosion protection: .............................................................. 14

2.7 Comparison of various tools and techniques ................................................................................... 15

2.8 Constructability aspects of proposed design .................................................................................... 16
2.9 Detailed discussion on results:.......................................................................................................... 17
3.Conclusion:............................................................................................................................................... 18
4. References .............................................................................................................................................. 19
5. Tables and geotechnical parameters: ..................................................................................................... 20
6. Appendices ............................................................................................................................................. 21

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1. Abstract:
Road widening project along the Salmon River Road near Riggings, Idaho required an innovative

design to construct retaining wall with limiting the road closures for few hours at a time.

Mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) walls were initially designed for the road widening project,

however the excavation required for the construction of reinforced zone of (MSE) walls requires

extended road closures. As a result, one of the MSE walls was redesigned for an anchored, cast in

place, backfilled retaining wall. The new design included excavation shoring which comprised of

reinforcing a temporary cut slope with three rows of passive ground anchors, which limited the

road closure to few hours at a time. The ground anchors held the steel mesh connected through the

bearing plate at the face of excavated slope. As the supporting soil was loose and would not be

acceptable for foundation support of the retaining wall due to low shear

strength and increased settlement potential micro piles were constructed. The grade beams were

constructed over the micro piles to transfer the load from retaining wall to foundation. The cast in

place concrete facing is constructed over the grade beam after which the ground anchors from

shored slope is extended and connected to the wall face starting from the lowest ground anchor.

The zone between concrete wall and reinforced slope is backfilled with the structural fill. A small

pre- tension load is applied to ground anchors after connection to wall face. Ground water seepage

was not noted along the alignment of the wall. Apparent pressure diagrams were used

to calculate the lateral loads on the wall due soil pressure, live load surcharge and horizontal

surcharge representing a seismic load. In short, a system of permanent ground anchors and concrete

facing was designed to resist the lateral loads and micro pile was designed to resist the vertical

load.

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2. Design and Analysis
2.1 Problem definition:

Retaining walls and excavation are common in road widening projects in hilly regions or

canons. An existing roadway must be widened without affecting the transportation along that

route. It is common to have a mechanically stabilised earth walls (MSE), but the horizontal

reinforcement required for the construction of MSE walls require more excavation time which

would result in extended road closures affecting the traffic flow. To eliminate this, issue a unique

mechanically stabilized earth wall was designed on the steep end of the road. The excavation

shoring was designed with three anchors in a column and it eased the construction phase of the

project. It also accumulated the traffic flow and limiting the duration of road closure to few hours

at a time. As the excavation shoring is nailed with the anchors, the micropile, grade beam and

concrete wall facings are constructed. The nailed ground anchors from shored slopes are extended

and connected to the concrete wall face in bottom to top approach.

The concrete wall was designed to take the lateral load, the grade beams along with micropiles as

a foundation to the wall was designed to take the axial load of the wall and to take the vertical

component of the anchor forces. The maximum height of the wall was 6 m and the length of the

wall is 220m.

2.2 Site description and assumptions:

The site is located along Salmon River Road of Riggins is a city in Idaho County, Idaho, United

States. A 6.82 km corridor of Salmon River road was subjected to improvements as the fill edge

stability was very poor due to steep, loose silver fills and runoff erosion. It required of an

innovative wall design due to the necessity of the road, as it cannot be closed for a longer duration.

Subsurface conditions in the slope above the road alignment had some gravel and cobbles.

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The crucial problem is that the road cannot be closed more than few hours at a time. The height of

the first anchor and bottom anchor from top and bottom of the ground is not given and is assumed

that the top anchor is 1m from top and the bottom anchor is 1 m spacing from the bottom. The

vertical spacing between the anchors is 2m. The angle of inclination for the anchor is not available

so the angle of inclination, i is assumed to be 15 degree. The micropile diameter size is taken as

115mm. The shored slope is 0.5 horizontal to 1 vertical and the excavation shoring to follow top

down installation approach. The wall thickness in the project is 300mm and a concrete of 28 Mpa

compressive strength was used. Few assumptions have been made with the material property of

steel, like the youngs modulus of elasticity is taken 2*108 Kpa . The youngs modulus of elasticity

was assumed to be 50Kn/m2

The spacing between the bond length and the plane of shear failure is assumed to be as 1.5m.

The loading conditions include the backfill which is to be applies on the MSE.

A surcharge of 3 kPa which is equivalent to (12 kPa vertically) due to traffic and construction live

load was taken into consideration. A seismic horizontal force was calculated by Monobe-Okabe

method (AASHTO 2004) to be 250 Pa per meter of the wall. The seismic load conditions are

considered in the Finite element analysis as there is a load of 250 Pa per m of the wall therefore

for 6 m height of the wall the horizontal force acting due to the seismic load is (250*6)/1000 =1.5

KN/m^2. However, in the study it has been assumed that seismic loading conditions does not

govern any significant aspect of the design.

Architectural finish to wall face, culvert of 610mm diameter and two inclinometer wall casings

were also accommodated in the design and they were assumed to be 2.5Kpa. The load transfer

capacity of the anchor was assumed to be 60KN/m as the observation test done on the field

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indicated the load transfer capacity to be 58kN/m. The nominal grout- ground bond strength for

the anchor was assumed as 385KN/m^2 (from type D gravel FHWA, table 5-2).

There are no water levels associated in the construction zone or any water pressure associated with

the wall. However,

a brief drainage

system for the

rainwater or storm

water drainage

system is

recommended. It is

recommended to

have a 6m high
Figure 1
drainage

geocomposite instead of 1.2m high with a semipermeable membrane in between the soil and the

plastic membrane (illustrated in the diagram below). It will allow the water to flow through the

membrane and can flow down against the plastic membrane to the weeping tile drain. It can further

exit the wall through the weeping hole in the wall which are located at every 2m distance in the

wall. This would reduce the water pressure to a negligible level.

The soil properties observed in the field indicated that most of the area was filled with gravel and

cobble deposits. The colluvium observed in the field were round to sub rounded, cobble to gravel

size deposits. The same material was used as the structural fill after the construction of wall facing.

The colluvium soil exhibited the SPT resistance of 17 blows per .3m. Sampler refusal occurred in

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10% of the tests which were carried out. A uniform soil profile was used for the design.

Figure 2

Figure 3

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2.3 Design
The elevation of the section is proposed as:

Figure 4

Due to heavy loading instead of sheet pile the concrete wall is used. The bed rock schist is found

to be located at the extreme end of the cross-section however a uniform soil profile was used for

the design. The existing road alignment was constructed as a balanced cut and fill method. The

excavation gap between the temporary slope and the concrete wall is backfilled with the structural

fill once the ground anchors are connected to the wall facing.

2.4 Computer design and input/output parameters:

SIGMA/W approach was used for the complete analysis the Input parameters used for analysis

are shown as under

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2.4.1 Input parameters

Figure 5

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2.4.2 Output Parameters

Figure 6

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2.4.3 Anchor design loads

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 Figure 7

Figure 8

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2.4.4 Deflection profile using GeoStudio:

Figure 9

The Finite element analysis approach using SAP2000 to check the lateral deflection is also used.

The output from the SAP analysis using frame elements is as below:

Figure 10

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2.5 Anchor bond design
The ultimate pull out capacity of soil anchor bond was obtained as 63.31 Kn/m (appendix) through

hand calculation. The typical grout- to - ground bond nominal strength was used for this calculation

and the grout to ground nominal strength was assumed to be 350Kn/m^2 considering a Type D

gavel. The field values for ultimate pullout capacity for anchors ranged between 83 to 101 Kn/m.

However, the soil anchor bond capacity was not increased beyond 58Kn/m due to potential

variability in subsurface condition. A similar case was seen in soil micropile bond capacity were

the field test gave the result between 61 to 85Kn/m and they limited it to 58Kn/m. Through hand

calculation the soil micropile bond capacity is 67.41Kn/m.(appendix). The factor of safety for both

cases was taken as 1.5.

If we use a grade 150 @ 26mm diameter pre-restressing bar allowable capacity of .6smts then

from ASTM A722 we get 341 KN(therefore, 341KN>130KN from hand calculations)

2.6 Proposed free length, inclination and corrosion protection:

The proposed free length for the anchors is 1.5m from the shored sloped. The free length should

at least pass through the plain of shear failure which is located at (45+friction angle/2 ) in our case

with friction angle of 38 degree we have failure plain at 64 degree which is actually the temporary

cut plane which is reinforced with the steel mesh and anchors sleeves in between.

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The inclination angle (i) of the anchor should be as horizontal as possible to reduce the vertical

component of the anchor forces. The

bonded length obtained from the hand

calculation is 4m. In total the length of

anchors passing behind the shored slope

is (4+1.5) = 5.5m.

Figure 11

The Concrete protection is assumed to be adequate enough to withstand the corrosion of steel in a

mildly corrosive environment as in case of our study. For the micropile reinforcement and anchors

which are subjected to more corrosive environment the design includes sacrificial steel. However,

it is recommended for more protection of steel from corrosion to use Galvanized Reinforcing Steel

Bars as recommended in ASTM A615/A615M or A706/A706M.

2.7 Comparison of various tools and techniques

Figure 12

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The anchor load from the hand calculations (Appendix) was designed using apparent earth pressure

diagram method. The obtained values from AEP is shown in table above. The maximum anchor

design loads from the hand calculations is 130.121Kn was observed at the middle anchor.

However, in case of GeoStudio the maximum anchor design load of 133.26Kn was obtained at the

lower anchor as GeoStudio uses the triangular distribution method. The values as seen in the above

table is approximately the same. However, the pattern differs due to the difference in approach.

The value observed from the case study is also approximating to the maximum value obtained

from hand calculations and GeoStudio results. The lateral stability was also checked for the wall,

which indicated the top deflection is 11.98 mm (Figure 9) through geo studio and similar model

was developed in SAP2000 through which 13.75 mm deflection(Figure 10) was obtained at the

top of the wall.

2.8 Constructability aspects of proposed design

The anchors tendons are extended from reinforced slope through the structural fill and connected

to the concrete wall. A small pre-stressing force is also applied to the anchors in the final stage

when they are connected to the face wall. To avoid any extra stresses induced in the anchor during

the backfill they are covered with a protective cover. This included a 50mm clear cover between

the tendon and face of the cover which was grouted after the completion of backfilling process.

The temporary shored slope is nailed as they go from top to down. The mesh was placed to support

the excavated slope to take the construction and traffic loads during the construction phase of the

wall. A temporary anchor is used at the shored slope to hold the dead load of steel mesh. This

temporary anchor is not included in the design as it does not resist any lateral pressure and its sole

purpose is to hold down the steel mesh. After the nailing of anchors over the shored slope,

micropiles are constructed in order to support the axial loads from the structure which prevents the

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settlement of the wall, the diameter of micropile is 115mm same as the diameter of ground anchors.

The structural concrete was specified with air entrainment as it could offer resistance to freeze

thaw damage.

2.9 Detailed discussion on results:

The approximate maximum design load for the anchors is 130.121KN.(Appendix)

As the backfill proceeds there will be external stresses induced on the anchors free length

in the backfill area, to reduce the stresses anchors will be provided with a grouted casing

along the free length of the anchor in the backfill area.

The allowable lateral deflection of the wall was 17mm. However from the conclusion

obtain from SAP2000 and GeoStudio the maximum lateral deflection on the top of the wall

comes out to be approximately 14mm(Figure 10)

The design from geo studio is based upon a phase construction process of backfilling the

total area in 3 phases and construction of concrete wall to be completed in two phases while

constructing 3 m at a time. The first 3m construction will have 2 phases of backfill as being

the bottom of the wall will be induced to more stresses. There will be more lateral

deflection if the construction of wall is constructed in one stretch to the height of 6 m. As

the micropile tends to translate towards the backfill causing the anchors to move forward

and cause the rotation of the wall. The phase construction and phase design anchor loads

is also done using GeoStudio and the same results can be seen phase wise from (Figure 7)

The maximum moment in the wall will be at the intermediate portion of the wall. As

calculate in the hand calculations as M2 and M3 (Appendix)

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 The anchor bond capacity obtained from hand calculations and field values are

approximating to the same value. (Appendix)

The comparison between GeoStudio value and the hand value is approximating to the same

values. However, the pattern in the values is different this is due to the difference in

approach as GeoStudio uses a triangular distribution method for computing the lateral earth

pressure and anchor forces.

3.Conclusion:
Hence an innovative wall design was completed, which allows minimum road closure time for the

construction of cast in place concrete wall. The road closure time is reduced by the design of excavation

shoring system which resist the lateral earth pressure and allows for transportation in the existing roadway

when the retaining wall construction takes place. The ground anchors which formed the excavation

shoring system is finally extended from the shored slope and connected to the concrete wall facing with a

small pre-tensioned force applied. The excavation shoring followed a top- bottom approach, while pre-

tensioning of anchors and backfilling was a bottom-top approach. The retaining wall was constructed in

stages to limit the total deflection at the top of finished structure. As the inclinometer was also considered

in design through which the displacement of the wall can be monitored, which increases the safety of

proposed roadway. The micopiles were constructed to resist the vertical loads and prevent settlement of

the cast in place concrete wall. On the whole the permanent cast in place concrete wall and ground

anchors were designed to resist the lateral loads.

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4. References
1. "Nylex Cordrain." PMS Engineering Ltd Civil Works Geocomposite Drainage Layer - Nylex

Cordrain / 18 Systems for Foundation Waterproofing, Drainage & Moisture Protection.

Accessed December 02, 2016.

http://www.pmstp.com/civil/geocomposite/geocomposite_products.html.

2. "Department of Transportation Launches 50th Anniversary Commemoration." Home |

Federal Highway Administration. Accessed December 03, 2016. http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/.

3. Corrosion-Resistance Bars. (n.d.). Retrieved December 04, 2016, from

http://www.crsi.org/index.cfm/steel/corrosion

4. Project Engineer, Golder Associates Inc., 18300 NE Union Hill Road Suite 200, Redmond,

Washington 98052, svanshaar@golder.com

5. 2 Project Engineer, Golder Associates Inc., 18300 NE Union Hill Road Suite 200, Redmond,

Washington 98052, kcottingham@golder.com

6. 3 Senior Consultant, Golder Associates Inc., 18300 NE Union Hill Road Suite 200, Redmond,

Washington 98052, awalker@golder.com

7. 4 FHWA Geotechnical Engineer, Federal Highway Administration, Western Federal Lands

Highway Division, 610 East 5th Street, Vancouver, Washington 98661,

Rich.Barrows@dot.gov

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5. Tables and geotechnical parameters:
List of figures
Figure 1 YOUNGS MODULUS ..................................................................................................... 6
Figure 2 SOIL TYPE ...................................................................................................................... 7
Figure 3 DRAINAGE SYSTEM .................................................................................................... 7
Figure 4 SITE CROSS SECTION .................................................................................................. 8
Figure 5 INPUT PARAMETERS ................................................................................................... 9
Figure 6 OUTPUT PARAMETERS ............................................................................................. 10
Figure 7 ANCHOR DESIGN LOADS ......................................................................................... 12
Figure 8 COMPLETE PHASE GEASTUDIO PHASE DEFLECTION ...................................... 12
Figure 9 DEFLECTION PROFILE OF GEOSTUDIO ................................................................ 13
Figure 10 SAP ANALYSIS .......................................................................................................... 13
Figure 11 INCLINATION ANGLE.............................................................................................. 15
Figure 12 COMPARISON TABLE .............................................................................................. 15

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6. Appendices

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