Abstract:
Soil nailing is a technique which can be low cost and simple to construct. Geotechnical Engineering Circular No. 7 (FHWA) provides detailed guidance and procedures for soil nail wall design. In practice actual design can be affected by the software which is used. In this presentation, a comparison of soil nail wall designs using dedicated soil nail design software, generalized stability analysis software using limit equilibrium methods and advanced numerical software is performed. Internal and overall stability are designed for the example given, and the final results are compared. A case study of a soil nail wall is also presented with numerical analysis results and field observation data. These comparisons demonstrate commercial slope stability software compares favorably with dedicated soil nail design software and may be used in soil wall design without resorting to dedicated software. For critical design problems, numerical analysis software can supplement the limit equilibrium software and perform stress-strain analyses.