A Seminar Report

On the topic of

SOIL NAILING

In the Guidance of Submitted By

Sh. R.P. Arora Avinash Chechani

Associate Professor (Civil Engineering,Final Year)

Department of civil Engineering

COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING

UDAIPUR (RAJASTHAN)
 Preface
Project is away to implement theoretical knowledge to practical use, to become successful
Engineer it is necessary to have a sound practical knowledge because it is the only way by which
one can acquire efficiency and still to work Successfully. It is a fact that theoretical knowledge is
not sufficient because things are not as ideal in practical field as they should be. I heartily thanks
to Mr. R.P. Arora to permit me for project seminar.

Avinash Chechani
 Acknowledgement
I offer my sincere gratitude to Mr. R.P. Arora for guiding me on my Seminar topic
with most valuable guidance ,m suggestion and constant encouragement for me to look into the
most detailed literature and texts regarding to the seminar and also with his ever available
helping hands which helped me to successfully complete the seminar work.

I also thank all the faculty members of the department of civil engineering.

Avinash Chechani

Civil Engineering, Final Year

Department Of civil Engineering

 College of Technology and Engineering
Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture & Technology
Udaipur, Rajasthan

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that this seminar report entitled “Soil Nailing” has been
carried out Under my supervision and guidance during the session 2012-13 by
Avinash Chechani , Student of Bachelor of Engineer (Civil Engineering). This
seminar has been carried out in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award
of bachelor of engineering in civil from College of Technology and Engineering,
Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture & Technology, Udaipur, Rajasthan.
This work has been carried out independently by the student under my
supervision and guidance. This Seminar report is here by approved for Submission.

Sh. R.P. Arora

Associate Professor
Department of civil Engineering
College of Technology and Engineering
Udaipur
S.NO. Content Page No.
1. Introduction 1

2. Fundamental Concept 2

3. Construction Methods 2

4. Permanent Facing 7

5. Corrosion Protection 8

6. Underground Condition 8

7. Applications 9

8. Area of Concern 11

9. Design 12

10. Monitoring 13

11. Field Testing 14

12. Pre Production Testing 15

13. Installation 18

14. Summary 25
SOIL NAILING
INTRODUCTION-
Soil Nailing is a procedure to reinforce and strengthen ground adjacent to an excavation by
installing closely spaced steel bars called nails, as construction proceeds from top down.
It is an effective and economical method of constructing retaining wall for excavation support,
support of hill cuts, bridge abutments and high ways.
This process is effectively in cohesive soil, brocken rock, shale or fixed face conditions.
Soil nailing is a construction technique that can be used as a remedial measure to treat unstable
natural soil slopes or as a construction technique that allows the safe over-steepening of new or
existing soil slopes. The technique involves the insertion of relatively slender reinforcing
elements into the slope – often general purpose reinforcing bars (rebar) although proprietary
solid or hollow-system bars are also available. Solid bars are usually installed into pre-drilled
holes and then grouted into place using a separate grout line, whereas hollow bars may be drilled
and grouted simultaneously by the use of a sacrificial drill bit and by pumping grout down the
hollow bar as drilling progresses. Kinetic methods of firing relatively short bars into soil slopes
have also been developed. Bars installed using drilling techniques are usually fully grouted and
installed at a slight downward inclination with bars installed at regularly spaced points across the
slope face. A rigid facing (often pneumatically applied concrete, otherwise known as shotcrete)
or isolated soil nail head plates may be used at the surface.
Alternatively a flexible reinforcing mesh may be held against the soil face beneath the head
plates. Rabbit proof wire mesh and environmental erosion control fabrics and may be used in
conjunction with flexible mesh facing where environmental conditions dictate.

Case Study I (Excavation)-

The proposed depth of excavation is 11 m and the area is meant for Hotel complex. Two
boreholes made in the site indicate that the soil up to 5 to 6 m is of cemented sand type
followed by disintegrated rock.

The average SPT value up to about 5.5 m is 15 and there is no ground water table within the
proposed depth of excavation. Site observations indicated that the excavations are stable up
to depth of 3 to 4 m beyond which there is a tendency for collapse particularly in the
presence of seeping water which suggests there is an apparent cohesion which makes the
slopes stable for a limited period which is nullified due to the presence of water. Figure 2
shows the typical collapse observed in the field.
One of the important conditions that favor soil nailing for excavation stability is the requirement
of stability of vertical cuts of depth of about 1 to 2 m before nailing which exists in the present
site conditions. Hence, it is suggested to have a retaining system in the form of soil nailed
excavated slopes and shotcrete facing for erosion stability with appropriate drainage measures.
To facilitate the soil nailing, Torsteel rods of 20 mm diameter (with yield strength of 415 MPa)
are used as nails. Table 1 provides the soil parameters used in the slope stability analysis.
Detailed analyses with various permutations and combinations of nail spacing and length are
performed and recommended sections (corresponding to a factor of safety of 1.4 or more for
temporary works) are arrived at. The excavated slopes strengthened with soil nailing shows that
the sections are safe with nailing (see Fig.

3). Table 2 gives the reinforcement properties along with suggested spacing and lengths.
The factor of safety of the section was improved to 1.4. This shoring support was for temporary
purpose of six months and it was able to provide safety during the construction of foundations
for the super structure. Pull out tests conducted also confirmed that the reinforcement bars had
the required bond stress.

 Case Study II (Stabilization of Slope of Reservoir)-

One of the earthen slope sections forming section of an impounding reservoir failed at the
interface of core and cover over about 200 m length and it was indicated that the casing soil that
was used initially in the construction was cohesionless and prone to erosion and hence failure
occurred.

Hence in the reconstruction, a better soil was used which had good silt and clay content and is
less prone to erosion, which also did not prevent failure along the interface. However in both the
cases, the sliding occurred. Figure 4 shows the extent of sliding observed during the field visit. It
is also noted that a number of tension cracks exist along the length of the embankment which
could be detrimental to the stability of the other sections as well. Hence to improve shear
resistance along the interface, soil nailing technique was used. Analysis indicated that the soil
nails positioned across the interface of core and cover improves the stability of the earthen
section.

Tables 3 and 4 provide the soil parameters used in the stability analysis and the results
indicate that the critical factor of safety varies depending on cohesion of the casing material.
Figure 1 shows a typical result for cohesion value of 5 kPa. Table 4 shows that the factor of
safety reduces to values lower than unity when the cohesion reduces to values in the range of 2
kPa. It may be noted that compacted soils such as the casing materials have cohesion values due
to capillary stresses which get reduced during the rainy season.

It is likely that the water entering through the tension cracks at the crest of the bund and also
from the bund surface would have resulted in loss of cohesion in the casing material in general
contributed to the sliding of the casing zone of the embankment. Loss of cohesion leads to
overall reduction in shear resistance of the soil and when the driving forces under the influence
of infiltrating water, seepage pressures through the tensions cracks increase, the available
resistance being less, slopes fail as happened in the present case. In order to increase the
available shear resistance, introduction of reinforcement is useful. Hence tor steel (with yield
strength of 415 MPa) rods of 20 mm dia and 5 m length, spaced at 0.5 m vertically and 1m
horizontally are suggested and the section is analyzed. Figure 5 shows the results of the analysis.
It is reported that the stability of the bund section is satisfactory.

It is important that in cases like the above, shear strength properties of the core and
embankment materials need to be determined based on effective stresses and also the back
pressure saturation of compacted samples need to be ensured.

 Case Study III (Approach Road for Underpass)-

In one of the metropolitan cities, an approach road for an underpass has become necessary
and the soil strata of the area are as under: Depth in metres Type of soil

0–1.50 Made up Soil

1.5–3.00 Non plastic Silty Sand

3.0–10.0 Non Plastic Poorly Graded Silty Sand

The SPT values vary from 6 to 17 and the soil is reported to have negligible cohesion with
friction angle values in the range of 27o to 31o and bulk density is in the range of 17.4 kN/m3.
Observations indicated that the excavations are stable up to depth of 1m beyond which there is a
tendency for collapse. This was confirmed when excavations collapsed beyond this depth in the
site as shown in Figure 7. Even an excavation of 1 m could not be done. Under these conditions,
two methods of excavation support for underpass construction were under consideration. One is
using strutting and shoring which was developed in 1930. It is time consuming, hinders the
movement of materials and personnel during underpass construction. It is also risky and involves
stage construction removal which may pose danger. It was felt that soil nailing technique is safe
as the excavation is stabilized after the soil is removed and is useful in the construction of
underpasses as the movement of personnel and material during the construction of underpass is
not hindered.

Pullout test is an important component of soil nailing technique and the clients conducted a few
pull out tests on sacrificial nails of 20 mm diameter and the results indicate that the value is the
range of about 300 kgs (3 kN). The value is low and only confirms the type of soil that exists in
the site is poor.

This value is comparable to the theoretical estimate of pullout resistance given by Pullout
resistance per metre length = overburden (γh) × area of contact of the nail (πd ) × tan øμ.

= 18 × 6 × 3.14 × 0.02 × tan 28 = 3.6 kN.

Hence a value of 3 kN/m is used in the analysis. The depth of excavation varies from 3 to 9.5 m
and soil nailing technique was adopted. Nail lengths of 7 m with spacing of 0.5 × 0.5 m were
provided to impart stability and the factor of safety is1.4. Figure 8 shows the picture.