Pullout Resistance of Pressurized Soil-Nailing by Cavity Expansion Theory

Pressure grouting is a common technique in geotechnical engineering to increase the stiffness and strength of the ground mass and to fill boreholes or void space in a tunnel lining and so on. Recently, the pressure grouting has been applied to a soil-nailing system which is widely used to improve slope stability. The soil-nailing design has been empirically performed in most geotechnical applications because the interaction between pressurized grouting paste and the adjacent ground mass is complicated and difficult to analyze. The purpose of this study is to analyze the increase of pullout resistance induced by pressurized grouting with the aid of performing laboratory model tests and field tests. In this paper, two main causes of pullout resistance increases induced by pressurized grouting were verified: the increase of mean normal stress and the increase of coefficient of pullout friction. From laboratory tests, it was found that dilatancy angle could be estimated by modified cavity expansion theory using the measured wall displacements. The radial displacement increases with dilatancy angle decrease and the dilatancy angle increases with injection pressure increase. The measured pullout resistance obtained from field tests is in good agreement with the estimated one from the modified cavity expansion theory.