QIP-STC on Challenges and Recent Advances in Geotechnical Engineering Research and Practices

IIT Guwahati

Issues and Aspects of Soil Nailing

Arindam Dey1

1. Introduction
Soil nailing is the technique used in slope stabilization and excavation with the use of passive
inclusions, usually steel bars, termed as soil nail. It consists of passive reinforcement which is
encased in grout to provide corrosion protection and improved load transfer to ground. The
concept of soil nailing emerged in 1960 when underground tunnels were supported with use of
anchorage systems aided by steel bars. The first field application of soil nailing was done in
France (1972) where a steep cut/excavation was reinforced by grouting a number of closed space
bars in ground. Clouterre Project (1991) led to the widespread interest and application of soil
nailing. Following the same, various other projects were launched in different countries like
Germany, USA, Hong Kong and others.

For soil nailing system, the mechanism of interaction between the soil and nail in the passive
zone is quite important. To understand the effect of soil properties and different testing
conditions on the interaction mechanism, Direct Shear test (Jewell, 1990) and Pull-out test
(Chang and Milligan, 1996) were conducted and the results were aptly reported. The effect of
different parameters like nail roughness, rigidity, flexibility, nail inclination, soil properties such
as angle of internal friction and dilation have also been studied by various researchers. The
application of Finite Element Method has been proposed (Su et al., 2006) for the estimation of
maximum shear stress generation at the soil nail interface and comprehending the concept of
dilation and stress release after drilling of the nail bore. Yin et al. (2012) proposed a simplified
analytical model that considers soil dilation, grouting pressure etc. to calculate maximum stress
generated at the soil-nail interface in the resisting passive zone.

1
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, IIT Guwahati, Assam-781039, India. [email protected]

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2. The Soil Nailing Concept

The function of soil nailing is to strengthen or stabilize the existing steep slopes and excavations
as construction proceeds from the top to bottom. Soil nails develops their reinforcing action
through soil-nail interaction due to the ground deformation which results in development of
tensile forces in soil nail. The major part of resistances comes from development of axial force
which is basically a tension force. Conventionally, shear and bending have been assumed to
provide little contribution in providing resistance.

The effect of soil nailing is to improve the stability of slope or excavation through
a) Increasing the normal force on shear plane and hence increase the shear resistance along
slip plane in friction soil.
b) Reducing the driving force along slip plane both in friction and cohesive soil
In soil nailing, the reinforcement is installed horizontally or gently inclined parallel to the
direction of tensile strain so that it develops maximum tensile force develops.

2.1. Advantage of Soil Nailing

Soil nailing provides the following advantages:
a) Eliminate cut and backfilling thus resulting in improved economy and lessened
environment impact.
b) Temporary excavation support system is converted to permanent support system.
c) Installation of nails is faster and it uses less construction materials.
d) It eliminates cramped excavations cluttered with internal bracing.
e) Easy adjustment of soil nails when encountered with underground structures and pile etc.
f) Due to their flexibility they can accommodate large differential settlement.
g) Shotcrete facing used in soil nailing is less costly than structural facing required for other
wall system.

2.2. Comparison to the Tie-back Walls

In comparison to the tie-back walls commonly used in many circumstances, soil nailing provides
the following advantages:

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a) No need of high capacity facing, as in soldier piles, since the maximum earth pressure is
not transferred to the excavation face.
b) Ease of construction and reduced construction time.
c) Improved construction flexibility in heterogeneous soil with cobbles, boulders or other
hard inclusion.
d) Vertical component of the nail reaction at facing are smaller and evenly distributed over
entire excavation face.
e) Density of soil nails is higher hence consequence of unit failure is less severe.

2.3. Limitations of Soil Nailing

In spite of the advantages, in terms of its applicability, soil nailing technique has some inherent
disadvantages as enlisted:
a) This technique can’t be used where strict deformation control is required as it mobilizes its
friction resistance with ground deformation.
b) A dewatered face is highly desirable for soil nailing otherwise it is impossible to establish a
satisfactory shotcrete skin.
c) Soil nailing is not well suited for clean sands and gravels.
d) In soft clays, due to lesser friction generated, high reinforcement density of considerable
length is required.
e) This technique is conventionally unsuitable for ground having high water table level due to
difficulty in drilling and excavation.
f) Construction of soil nails require specialized worker.

2.4. Ground Condition Best Suited for Soil Nailing

The ground conditions which are best suited for soil nailing can be enlisted as:
a) Residual soil and weathered rocks
b) Stiff cohesive soils such as clayey silts and other soils that is not prone to creep
deformation.
c) Dense sand and gravel with some cohesive properties.
d) Ground conditions located above the ground water table (GWT).
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2.5. Ground Condition Not Suited for Soil Nailing

The ground conditions which render the application of soil nailing technique to be unsuitable are:
a) Loose clean granular sand as they don’t have adequate stand-up time prior to nail
installation
b) Soils having excessive moisture or wet pockets as they will create stability problems.
c) Soils having frost susceptibility and expansive properties results into excessive facing load.
d) Highly fractured rocks with open joints or voids due to problem in grouting.

3. Soil Nailing: Description and Basic Mechanism

3.1. Construction Sequence

The construction sequence of soil nailing as practiced in the field is described as follows and has
been depicted schematically in Figure 1 (Byrne et al., 1998):

a) Excavate Initial Small Cut

Initial small cut is excavated before the first row nail installation which is typically about 1
to 2 m. Ground vibration should be minimized during construction. The excavated face
should be smooth so as to minimize shotcrete quantities.

b) Drill Hole for Nail

Holes are drilled at required location with suitable length and inclination. Drilling can be
both cased and uncased depending upon stability of soils.

c) Install and Grout Nail

With the help of centralizers, nails are properly placed (centered) in the drill holes.
Grouting take place under gravity, or can be accompanied by some grouting pressure.

d) Place Drainage System

To control seepage, a prefabricated synthetic drainage is placed vertically against the
excavation face before shotcreting.

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e) Place construction facing and install bearing plates

Steel bearing plate and securing nut are placed at each nail head and the nut is
tightened sufficiently.

f) Repeat Process to final grade

The above sequence is repeated until the final wall grade is achieved.

g) Place final facing

For long term stability reason and durability reason, a CIP concrete facing is used. Precast
concrete can also be used as final facing for soil nail walls.

3.2. Various Type of Soil Nailing

Various types of soil nails which are commonly encountered in practice are as follows:
a) Grouted Soil nail – First the nails are centrally placed in the drill hole and then the grout is
inserted in the hole with the help of pressure or gravity.
b) Driven nails – These nails are directly driven after the each excavation step.
c) Jet grouted nails- These are composite inclusion made of grouted soil with central steel
rod. It uses high pressure grout for vibro-percussion driving and then the nails are installed
using high frequency.
d) Launched nails- In this process, nails are launched into the ground with very high speed,
using compressed air launcher. This method is very rapid, flexible and economical. Nails
are installed at speed of around 320 km/h.

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Fig 1 Construction sequence of soil nailing (Byrne et al., 1998)

4. Elements of Soil Nail

The various elements of a soil nail (Figure 2) can be enlisted as follows:

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a) Steel bar- This is the main component of soil nail system. It may be solid or hollow with
necessary required strength. It acts as a tension member.
b) Centralizers- It is fixed with steel bar so that nail can be placed centrally in drill hole.
c) Grout – It is used to fill the space between ground and installed nails. Proper bonding is
achieved through grouting and the loads are transfer first to the grout and then to the nail.
d) Nail head- It works as a reaction pad for generation of tensile force in the nails and it also
prevent local failure between the nails.
e) Hex nut, washer and bearing plate-These are used to connect nail to the facing and form
the integral part of nail head.
f) Temporary and Permanent Facing- It provides support to the exposed surface of soil nail
and act as bearing surface for bearing plate. After that, permanent facing is installed over
temporary facing.
g) Drainage System-A prefabricated synthetic drainage is placed vertically against the
excavation face to prevent any seepage against the excavation face.

Fig 2 Components of a soil nail (Porterfield et al., 1994)

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5. Behavior and Mechanism of Soil Nailing

Soil nails are passive inclusions, which improve shearing resistance of soil. The soil nail system
can be divided into active and passive region as shown in Figure 3. During the slope failure,
active region tends to deform which results in axial displacement along soil nails which are
placed across the slip plane. This results in the development of tensile forces in soil nail in the
passive zone which resists the deformation of active zone. This tension force results in increment
of the normal force coming on slip plane and reduces the driving shear force. The soil nails are
embedded in passive region through which it resists the pull-out of nail from slope through
friction between nails and soil. Based on the above two mechanisms, the required amount of nail
length should be placed in resistive zone. In addition, the combined effect of nail head strength
and tension force generated in active zone must be adequate to provide the required nail tension
at the slip surface.

Fig 3 Conceptual soil nail behavior (Byrne et al., 1998)

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Tension force in soil nail is the main contributing factor in stabilization of slope. The
contribution coming from shear and bending is conventionally considered to be negligible.
Shear and bending resistance comes into picture when excessive deformation takes place
indicating that the failure is not sudden. However, these two factors will be prominent when the
failure of a soil nail wall is more due to displacement and less due to shear.

6. Potential Failure modes of a Soil Nail wall

Generally, three distinct failure modes (Figure 4) have been observed for a soil nail system. They
are as follows:

a) Facing failure – This type of failure develops in soil nail wall having long nails with high
tensile strength and modest facing strength facing. In facing failure, the head strength will
not contribute for stability of active zone.

b) Pull out failure – This occurs when soil nail has limited penetration into the passive
region and possesses high tensile capacity and facing strength. The force generated in
nails in active region will depend upon length of reinforcement in passive zone, and is
expressed as.
Q = π qDDH (2.1)
where, Q is the mobilized pull-out per unit length, q is the mobilized shear stress acting
around the perimeter of soil nail, and DDH is the effective diameter of nail hole.

Considering a single nail segment subjected to a tensile force, T0, at one end, and
applying equilibrium of forces along the differential length segment (dx) of the nail
shown in Figure 5, the tensile force can be estimated from the interface shear stress as:
dT = π qDDH dx = Qdx (2.2)

If the length of the soil nail embedded in the passive zone is Lp, then the total pull-out
force (F) is estimated as
F = Q.LP (2.3)

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c) Nail Tendon failure –Such failure occurs when sufficient length of nail is provided but
with modest tensile stress.

Fig 4 Potential failure modes of soil nail wall (Byrne et al., 1998)

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Fig5 Forces acting on a nail (Lazarte et al., 2003)

7. Nail Strength Failure Envelope

The reinforcing contribution of the nail is a function of location at which slip circle intersect the
nail support diagram (Figure 6).The nail support diagram considers minimum strength criterion
between tensile strength and pull out strength. The contribution of nail to stability of sliding
block will be least of the nail tendon tensile strength (TN), the nail pull-out resistance from
passive zone (Qy), nail head strength (Tf) added to the nail-soil pull out resistance in active zone
(Qx).

Fig 6 Nail support diagram (Byrne et al., 1998)

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If slip surface intersects the nail support diagram in Zone A then reinforcing force is considered
as (TF+Qx). Similarly, if it intersects in Zone B, the reinforcing force is TN while in Zone 3, the
reinforcing force becomes Qy.

8. Soil Nail Pull-out Resistance

The soil-nail pullout resistance is influenced by many parameters like overburden stress,
grouting, dilatancy of shearing zone, roughness of nail surface, water content and soil properties.
Effect of some of these factors is yet to be understood properly. Many design method currently
don’t consider the above factors in their design. For example, effective stress method adopted in
Hong Kong (commonly known as the Hong Kong Method) a simple equation for calculating nail
pullout resistance has been proposed and is expressed as:

(
T = π Dca + µ*σ n' Peq L ) (2.4)

where, T is the ultimate pull out resistance, D is the nail diameter, ca is the adhesion between soil
'
and nail, σ n is the effective normal stress at soil nail interface, Peq is the nail perimeter, μ* is the
apparent friction between soil and nail, and L is the length of soil nail in anchored zone (or the
passive zone).

9. Effect of Overburden Pressure

Su et al. (2009) conducted laboratory pullout test on soil nail in a pullout box which only
simulate a single element of soil nail in the passive zone. The pull out test was carried on
completely decomposed granite (CDG) soil. A total of six earth pressure cells were used to
measure earth pressure during various stages of the pullout accompanied by two Linear Variable
Differential Transducers (LVDT) and one load cell.

A 3D finite element model using ABAQUS was also developed for simulating soil nail pullout
tests. From Figure 7, it can be seen that before drilling, the vertical pressure applied is equal to
overburden pressure. After the drilling process, the vertical over burden pressure decreased from
120 to zero at soil nail interface. This is due to stress released after drilling process. During the
pullout, an increase in the vertical stress has been observed both in experiments and 3-D FE
model as shown in Figure 2.7.In laboratory test, the use of grouted nails resulted in more vertical

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stress before pullout than obtained after the drilling process. At the peak pull out resistance, the
vertical pressure increased to certain values with the increase in overburden stress. This
increment is basically attributed to the constrained dilatancy phenomena by the surrounded soil
in pullout box. For various overburden pressures, the 3D simulation and lab results revealed
reasonable agreement in the obtained pull out resistance.

For driven soil nail, Schlosser (1982) has found that effective vertical stress during pullout is
closely related with overburden pressure while for grouted nails, due to the stress release, the
effective pressure decreases.

Fig 7 Simulated vertical stresses and measured vertical stress distribution (Su et al., 2009)

10. Effect of Bending Stiffness of Reinforcement

The development of higher bending moment reduces the maximum axial tension which a soil
nail can support. For this, two limiting combination of axial force and bending moment were
defined as expressed below (Calladine, 2011) and shown in Figure 8.

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Fig 8 Limiting bending moment and axial force in soil-nail reinforcement Jewell and Pedley, 1990)

M max T
For inner quadrilateral: + =1 (2.5a)
MP TP
2
M T 
For outer ellipse: max +   = 1 (2.5b)
MP  TP 

Jewell and Pedley (1990) used the Equation 2.5b for circular bars considering an elasto-plastic
analysis. Apart from its dependency on axial force, maximum bending moment also depends on
the generated shear force, and hence, the maximum tension also depends upon shear force
generated in reinforcement. Schlosser (1983) analyzed this combination of shear and moment
loading by using the theory of laterally loaded pile in elastic medium and related maximum shear
force to axial force as per the following expression:

4.93M max   T  
Tc = 1 +   (2.6)
ls   TP  
where, ls is the distance between points of maximum moment on either side of shear plane as
shown in Figure 9.

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Fig 9 Elastic analysis of the bending of a soil nail (Jewell and Pedley, 1990)

Jewell and Pedley (1990) and Hansen and Lundgren (1960) carried out plastic analysis for
laterally loaded pile. The difference between the approached by the above researchers had been
that for plastic equilibrium, the length which is to be extended beyond maximum moment point
is considered longer by the former researchers.

In case of grouted soil nail bar, there is increase in surface area over which axial force is
mobilized and increment of bearing stress which subsequently results in generation of more
shear force as compared to the non-grouted soil nail. Contribution of grout material in increasing
bending stiffness of nail is negligible. With the development of shear force and bending stress in
soil nail, there is not much improvement in shear strength of soil as shown in Figure 10.

Fig 10 shearing resistance of grouted nails in various orientations (Jewell and Pedley, 1990)

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11. Effect of Nail Inclination using Direct Shear Test

Jewell (1980) found that maximum shear stress in soil reinforcement occurs when the
reinforcement is inclined at 300 with respect to normal to shear plane in clockwise direction
(Figure 11). The main reason behind it is that at this direction, there is generation of principle
maximum tensile strain which results in the development of the tension force in soil nail. Jones
(1990) suggested that there is change in direction of principle tensile strain along the slip plane.
At upper portion of soil nail, the slope for maximum efficiency nails should be provided in
upward direction and inclined gradually in downward direction.

Fig 11 Effect of inclination of soil nail on shear strength (Fan and Luo, 2008)

12. Pullout Mechanism in Dilative Soil

Luo et al. (2000) described an analytical model for pull out resistance of rigid soil nail
reinforcement in dilative soils. During the pull out of soil nail, dilation of soil particles occurs in
vicinity of the soil nail and due to constrained dilatancy, the normal stresses get increased by 2 to
10 times the overburden pressure (Xanthakos, 1991). Bolton (1986) proposed the saw-tooth
model of dilatancy as shown in Figure 12.

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Fig 12 Saw-tooth model for soil dilatancy (Bolton, 1986)

Luo et al. (2000) idealized the saw-tooth model for soil dilatancy around a soil nail in which it
was considered that the soil nail and the soil inside rupture surface are not deformed in shearing
while the soil outside the rupture surface will deform both in axial and radial direction (Figure
13).

Fig 13 The idealized model of dilatancy phenomenon in combination to a soil nail (Bolton, 1986)

Bolton (1986) proposed a correlation between IR (relative density index) with Ψmax (maximum
dilation angle) as follows:
Ψ max = 3I R (2.7)

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Bolton (1986) proposed the limits of the value of IR (0< IR <4) which results in valid confining
pressure range as given by
 5   1 
1−  1− 
I I
e R  < p' < e R  (2.8)

c
( )
Luo et al. (2000) suggested the relation between the critical radial displacement uro and the

critical axial shear displacement (uc) as follows:

c 1
uro = uc tanΨ max (2.9)
2
The dilation effect was portrayed as a radially expanding rod firmly contained in an elastic
medium and suggested an expression to estimate the actual normal pressure on rupture surface as
follows:
2Guro
q' = + σ v' (2.10)
ro

where, G is the shear modulus of soil, r0is the radius of soil nail, σ v' is the effective overburden
pressure, and q’ is the actual normal force on rupture surface.

tan φ '
Juran (1988) defined an efficiency factor expressed as ω = . Luo et al. (2000) used this
tan Φ '

q'
parameter and developed a new for the efficiency factor as ω = max which shows that apparent
σ v'
friction coefficient increases with angle of dilation but decreases with overburden effect.

13. Analytical Method for Pullout Resistance

Yin et al. (2012) proposed a new method to calculate maximum shear stress at the nail-soil
interface considering the effect of post-installation normal stress, stress due to dilation and
grouting pressure. For drilled nail, the effective normal stress during pull out is define by

σ n' = σ 'p + σ d' (2.11)

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where, σ n' is the effective normal stress, σ 'p is the post installation normal stress, and σ d' is the

stress generated due to soil dilation.

With the help of theory developed by Jaeger and Cook (1976) and considering stresses in soil at
a distance r from the center of a drill hole (You, 2000), Yin et al. (2012) developed a expression
for soil nail without the consideration of grout pressure and is expressed is follows:
 2   2
σ v' m 2 (1 + k0 )  r0 + urf GP = 0  − r02  + 2 σ c'  m2 r02 −  r0 + urf GP ≠ 0  
( )
 ( )    ( ) 
σ n' =    (2.12)
2
2 m − 1  r0 + u f
( 2
) 

 r ( GP ≠ 0 ) 
f
where, m is the influence coefficient, k0 is the coefficient of lateral pressure, ur GP =0 is the
( )

failure surface distance, σ c' is the residual normal stress, ro is the drill hole radius.

The above equation has been modified for the inclusion of grout pressure and is expressed as
follows:
   − r 2  
2
σ v' m 2 (1 + k0 )  r0 + u f  0 
r ( GP = 0 ) 
   
 
  2 2  
2 
( )
' f
 +2 σ c  m r0 −  r0 + ur ( GP ≠ 0 )   
    
σ n' =  +
G c '
ua tanΨ max tan φ ' (2.13)
2 r0
2 m − 1  r0 + u f
( 2
) 

 r ( GP ≠ 0 ) 

   − r2 
2 
σ v' m2 (1 + k0 )  r0 + u f  
r ( GP = 0 )  0
   
 
  2 2  
2 
( ' '
) f
 +2 0.00143σ v p gr + σ c  m r0 −  r0 + ur ( GP ≠ 0 )   
      G
τ= 2
 + u c tanΨ ' tan φ '
a max (2.14)
  r0
2
(
2 m − 1  r0 + u

) f
r ( GP ≠ 0 ) 

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where, pgr is the residual grout pressure and τ is the maximum shear stress for 350 kPa grouting
pressure.

The parametric studies indicated that for pressure grouted nails, maximum shear stress at the nail
soil interface increases with the increase of failure distance, dilation angle and overburden stress.
For nails installed without grouting pressure, maximum shear stress increase with decrease of
drill-hole radius and the generated maximum shear stress is less dependent on overburden
pressure as compared to the dilation angle.

14. Summary
This article summarizes various aspects and issues related to soil nailing related to the basic
concept of soil nailing and its inherent advantages and limitations. The applicability of the
reinforcement practice has been discussed against its suitability in various types of soils. The
various primary vistas of soil nailing related to its construction sequence, nailing types and soil
nail elements have been illustrated. The basic behavior and mechanism of soil nailing have been
elucidated with due regard to various failure modes of the nailed structure. The pullout strength
of the nails has been explained with respect its strength envelope. Effects of various parameters
namely overburden pressure, bending stiffness, and nail inclination on the nail behavior have
been discussed. The Pullout mechanism in dilative soil and analytical method for estimating the
pullout resistance has been exemplified.

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structures” Journal of Geotechnical Engineering, ASCE, Vol. 116, No. 1, pp. 55-72.

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Unterreiner, P., Benhamida, B. and Schlosser, F. (1997) “Finite element modeling of the construction of a full-scale
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