EVALUATION OF PULL-OUT CAPACITY OF HELICAL ANCHORS IN CLAY

USING FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS

Akhil Pandey1 and Vinay Bhushan Chauhan2

1
PG Student, Civil Engineering Department, Madan Mohan Malviya University
ofTechnology, Gorakhpur, 273010, India.Email:akhilpandey812@gmail.com
2
Assistant Professor, Civil engineering Department, Madan Mohan Malviya University of
Technology, Gorakhpur, 273010, India.Email:chauhan.vinaybhushan@gmail.com

Abstract

In the present study, an attempt is made to evaluate the ultimate pullout capacity of the vertical
helical plate anchor embedded in clay with various geometrical configurations using the finite
element analysis. Numerical simulation is done on the single, and multiple helical anchoring in
this study. Variation of ultimate pullout capacity for the single isolated helical anchor is obtained
with varying embedded depth (H). Also, the ultimate pullout capacity of multi-plate anchors
having a number of plates (n) ranging from 2 to 5 has been investigated integrating the effect of
spacing (S) between consecutive helical plates while keeping the diameter of the helical plate (D)
and anchor shaft constant. The present study also investigates the development of failure plane
with varying embedded depth in case of single plate anchor and focused on the determination of
the interference of failure pattern with the variation of S/D for the multi-helix plate anchors.
Present study underlays the optimum H/D ratio for single plate helical anchor and S/D ratio for
multiple helical plates and subsequently ultimate pullout capacity of the anchor plate system is
obtained. This study also established an equation for multiple plate anchor with the number of
the helical anchor plate.

Keywords: Helical plate anchor, finite element analysis, pullout capacity, failure mechanism,
OptumG2

Introduction

Pile foundations are often designed for the compressive loads, however, they can resist tensile
forces upto some extent but not efficiently. Pile foundation which is purposely designed to cater
the tensile load demand a costly affair, as well as the construction, handling, installation, is also
a tedious process. To resist the tensile forces on the foundation anchors piles are excessively
used in supporting structures. The anchor is geotechnical structural element generally designed
to transmit overturning moment and any uplift force it consists of a central shaft which is used to
transfer axial loads from the main structure to the plates. A helical anchor, also known as a screw
pile, screw anchor, or helical pile, is an extendable foundation system which consists of helically
shaped steel plates that are attached to a central steel shaft with a round or square cross-section.
The plates offer substantial pull-out resistance once they are advanced to a suitable depth. Since
they are suitable for compression as well as tensile loads(Zorany Z.M. et al. 2015).Multi-plate

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anchor piles with more than one helical plates are in practice for many applications such as high
rise bill-board, transmission towers, buried pipelines, retaining wall system, construction of
suspension bridges, high rise building, tunnel construction, etc. It also helps in providing
adequate safety against axial compression, uplift, and/or lateral loadings. (Hamed. M. et al.
2018).
Easy installation in the ground up to any desired depth in any weather condition and across
restricted access sites, immediate loading capability, etc has increased its popularity in more
traditional civil engineering infrastructure applications. Most industries use screw helical anchor
due to cost efficiencies and increase the reduced environmental impact. Mooney et al. (1985)
were among the first few who suggested design criteria for this type of anchor. From the
previous study, it has been noted that pullout capacity of the anchors is very much affected by
the number of helical plates, the depth of anchors from the ground surface, the ratio of the
spacing between the helical plates to the diameter of the plates, and the embedment depth. Which
are performed theoretically as well as experimentally by various researcher such as (Ghaly et al.
1991; Rao and Prasad 1993; Hanna et al. 2007; Lutenegger2011; Wang et al. 2013; Demir and
Ok 2015; Ghosh and Samal 2019).
It has also been noted from the previous experimental program that study of the development of
failure surface is very important to achieve the ultimate pullout capacity. However, the physical
model test could not verify the development of failure pattern due to the constraint of visibility
(Rao and Prasad 1993; Rao and Kumar 1994). The present study is aimed at understanding the
effect of embedded depth ratio and spacing ratio on the uplift pullout capacity of the single and
multiple helical anchor plate along with their failure surface.
Numerical modeling offers better failure pattern, speed, and accuracy of multiple physical
quantities in comparison with the experimental analysis. Therefore in order to investigate the
helical plate anchors with a different configuration, an extensive finite element analysis is
executed.
In order to find the ultimate pullout capacity (qu) of single helical anchors variation of ultimate
pullout capacity for the single isolated helical anchor is obtained with varying embedded depth
(H). Also, the ultimate pullout capacity of multi-plate anchors having a number of plates (n)
ranging from 2 to 5 has been investigated integrating the effect of spacing between consecutive
helical plates (S) diameter ratio while keeping the diameter of the helical plate (D) and anchor
shaft constant. In case of multiple plates helical anchors, their spacing between the consecutive
plates is also determined along with all the parameters involving in single helical anchors. The
behavior of the failure plane occurs in the anchor system is also used to analyze the pullout
capacity of the anchor's plates. A better understanding of helical anchor behavior will hopefully
lead to a wider acceptance as a foundation alternative and lead to more economic and safer
designs.

Numerical Modeling of Helical Plate Anchor

To carry out the numerical analysis, a series of systematic simulations are executed using a finite
element based computational tool Optum G2(REFER) in the present study. A typical mesh
considered for this analysis having complete details of the geometrical configuration of plate
anchor is shown in Figure 1.

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 Figure 1.The typical mesh of (a) a single helical anchored plate system (b) multiple helical
anchor plate systems
It is worth to mention here that in the helical plate anchor system with a vertical line of
symmetry existing through the center of the anchor shaft, so, an asymmetrical analysis is adopted
for the simulation of the helical anchor system embedded in the clay bed. Hence, only half of the
model geometry has been considered for the numerical simulation. This particular practice of
adopting the symmetrical half geometry facilitates faster execution of the program.
Furthermore, the system of helical anchored embedded in the soil is often dealt as a three-
dimensional problem (Jesmani et al.2013), however, in the present study, a two-dimensional
model has been adopted to simulate the helical plate anchor system. Appropriate boundary
conditions are applied at the edges of the mesh i.e. fixed boundary condition at the bottom of the
mesh and roller boundary condition at the vertical end of the soil mass are chosen as shown in
Figure 1.
To investigate the ultimate pullout capacity of a single anchored plate system for a given
diameter (D) of 2m, embedded depth(H) measured from the ground surface is varied along the
central shaft and transition of the modes of failure plane around the helical plate anchors with
embedded depth (H) has also been investigated by lower and upper bound method of finite
element in the present study.
It has been also observed that the enhance qu of the anchor system(Ghosh et al.2018). Therefore
mentioned numerical analysis has been extended to investigate the behavior of multiple helical
anchor plates. In the present study, the number of helical anchor plates (n) is varied from 2 to 5
and the effect of spacing between the two consecutive helical plates(S) is also investigated to
determine the qu of the anchor having multiple helical plates. In this analysis, clay is considered
to be following the Tresca failure model, for which the self-weight of the soil is assumed to be
zero, which is in line with the previous study conducted by Merifield et al. (2011) in order to

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account the separation phenomenon which usually occurs during any normal motion of the
anchor away from the soil. The Tresca failure criterion can be regarded as a particular case of the
Mohr–Coulomb failure criterion. Both are widely used in non-linear analyses of many
geotechnical problems. When Tresca failure criterion is used together with the finite element
method, a plastic flow rule must also be incorporated in the soil model, which has been
accounted in the present study using non-associated flow rule (Taiebat and Carter 2007).

Furthermore, unit weight of the anchor system is also neglected i.e. considered as zero so that
maximum uplift capacity of the anchor system can be directly obtained without subtracting the
weight of the anchor system (Rao and Prasad 1993). The interface between clay and plate
material has also been accounted for the present numerical analysis with consideration of a
smooth interface with no tension condition at the anchor-soil interface. The central shaft of the
anchor and helical anchor plate are considered as a rigid material. The material properties
consider for the clay, helical anchor plate and the central shaft is shown in Table1. The
interference effect of failure planes between the consecutive plates of the anchor is also
examined by varying the distance between the successive plates.

Table.1 Material properties

Property Clay Helical anchor Central shaft(C1000)

plate (P800)
Normal stiffness(EA) kN/m - 4.0×106 4.2 ×105
Bending stiffness (EI) kNm2/m - 1.0×105 -
Yield force (np) kN/m - 5.0×103 5.0×103
Yield moment (mp) kNm/m - 8.0×102 8.0×102
Undarined shear strength (su) 1 - -
(kPa)
Stiffeness for undrained soil (Eu) 30 - -
(MPa)

Furthermore, in the present analysis, installation effect of plate anchor system into the ground
and large strain aspects during the pullout of the anchor are neglected in line with Spagnoli et al.
(2018).
In the present study, to determine the ultimate uplift capacity of the anchored plate system, a
multiplier uniformly distributed load is applied. Numerical simulation with multiplier distributed
load offers a facility for the determination of pull capacity in a systematic manner, where
distributed load are applied in an incremental order till the anchored plate system reaches on the
verge of the failure or collapse. In the present study, the diameter of the central shaft and helical
plate are considered as 0.4m and 2m, respectively. The thickness of the helical plate is taken as
0.1m. The central shaft of the anchor is connected to the helical plate and a multiplier distributed
load is applied above the ground surface. No prestress are applied in the connector. Shaft friction
contributes towards the ultimate pullout capacity of the helical plate anchors (REFER)., hence it
is ignored in the present analysis to provide a conservative determination of the pullout capacity
of the helical plate anchors.

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The efficiency of any numerical model depend upon the optimum number of element hence
sensitivity analysis is performed to obtain the optimum domain size of the present mesh in this
analysis. A total number of elements for a configuration of the single plate has been investigated
at fixed considerable embedded depth for a given helical anchor plate. A total number of the
element has been varied from 1000 to 6000 with the increment of 1000 element in each analysis.
From the optimum pullout capacity, it is found that the 4000 element is good enough for mesh
considered in the analysis.

Result and Discussion

As the uplift capacity of anchors is greatly influenced by the embedment ratio and spacing ratio
(REFER), therefore, the present analysis involves the variation of embedment and spacing ratio
in order to obtain the maximum uplift capacity as well as the failure pattern of the anchored plate
system. Finite element analyses were performed to investigate the pullout capacity for a wide
range of embedment depth (H) for a given fixed anchor plate diameter of 2m. For a single plate
anchor system, embedment depth ratio H/D is varied from 0.5 to 1.75 to obtain the maximum
ultimate pullout capacity of the plate anchor (Figure 2).
To determine the minimum depth at which the anchor plate of a given diameter can achieve the
ultimate pullout capacity, the embedment depth of the plate anchor is increased from 1-3m.

Figure 2.Variation of ultimate pullout capacity with embedment depth ratio (H/D) for
single helical anchor plate

It is observed that optimum pullout capacity increases with the H/D ratio till 1.25 with further
increase in H/D ratio,qu remains constant. Ultimate pull capacity observed at H/D=1.25 is
12.33±0.21kN/m2. Furthermore, the failure pattern at various H/D ratio is also observed during
this study. It is found that at lower H/D ratio(less than 1) failure surface is not distinctive and

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created a bulge till the ground surface as shown in Figure 3(a). It is also observed that at H/D
ratio (equal to 1) transition of the failure surface occurs which result in the formation of some
cylindrical shape with the little movement toward the ground surface(Figure 3(b)). At H/D ratio
(greater than 1) soil shows a balloon-like shape without any lateral movement as shown in Figure
3(c).

Figure 3. Failure pattern of single helical anchor plate systems, with (a) H/D=0.75
(b) H/D=1 (c) H/D= 1.25

In a case of double plate helical anchor variation of maximum ultimate capacity with the spacing
ratio (S/D) is analyzed in this study. During the numerical simulation of the double plate helical
anchor, it is found that ultimate pullout capacity increases with the increase in spacing ratio
(S/D) to 2.75 (Figure 4).

Figure 4.Variation of ultimate pullout capacity with spacing ratio (S/D) for multiple helical
anchor plate

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With further increase in S/D ratio, no substantial increase in the maximum ultimate pullout
capacity is observed. Ultimate pull capacity observed at S/D ratio =2.75 is 25.03±0.03kN/m2.
Failure pattern is also analyzed during this variation and it is found that in case of lower spacing
ratio(less than 1) upper plate shown a linear movement toward the ground surface while lower
plate showed a parabolic upward movement. At intermediate spacing ratio(from 1 to 1.75)
transition phase of the failure pattern from indefinite shape towards definite shape began. In this
range failure surface is found to be a cylindrical shape with little upward movement is observed.
It is also found that helical anchor plate with higher spacing ratio shows a definite balloon shape
failure pattern with no lateral movement as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Failure pattern of double helical anchor plate systems with (a) S/D ratio=1
(b) S/D= 1.5 (c) S/D=2

In this paper, the variation of a number of the helical plate in anchor with the ultimate pullout
capacity is also performed by numerical simulation. During this study, the embedment depth
ratio along with the spacing ratio is fixed as obtained earlier, by varying the number of helical
anchor plate (from 3 to 5)maximum ultimate capacity of the helical anchor is observed. In this
study, it is noticed that pullout capacity of the helical anchor plate at fixed embedment
ratio(H/D) and spacing ratio (S/D) maximum ultimate pullout capacity increases with increase in
a number of the helical anchor plate. By analyzing the different data which we obtained in this
study, it is found that there exists a linear relationship between the ultimate pullout capacity of
helical anchor and number of helical anchor plate (Figure 6).

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 Figure 6.Variation of maximum ultimate capacity with the number of helical plates in the
anchor

During the numerical simulation of the multiple helical anchors, failure pattern of the helical
anchor is also observed by keeping depth, diameter and spacing between the consecutive helical
plate of the helical anchor fixed. It is found that the failure surface of helical anchor is indicated
by the cylindrical failure pattern with a little or no lateral movement(Figure 7).

Figure 7. Failure pattern of multiple helical anchor plate system with a spacing of 5.5m (a)
Three helical anchor plate (b) Four helical anchor plate (c) Five helical anchor plate

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By plotting the different data and by using the best fitting curve a linear relation is also
determined between the number of the helical plate and maximum pullout capacity of helical
anchor (Equation 1).
𝑞𝑢 = 12.27 𝑛 + 0.15 ( 1)

Conclusion

The present study involves comprehensive finite element numerical analysis of the uplift
capacity of isolated single and multiple helical anchor plate embedded in clay by varying depth
and spacing with the finite element model. It is noticed that embedment depth(D), the spacing
between the consecutive anchor plate (S), and a number of helical anchor plate(n) in anchor play
a vital role in the uplift capacity of the anchor plate. The following conclusions are drawn from
the present analysis.
1. It is found that by keeping the diameter fixed, H/D of 1.25 gave the maximum uplift
capacity of helical anchor plate, H/D greater than 1.25 gave near about the same
maximum ultimate pullout capacity.
2. In case of multiple helical anchor plate, spacing also plays an important role in deciding
the uplift capacity and S/D of 2.75 between the consecutive helical plate results in
maximum pullout capacity. S/D greater than 2.75 between the consecutive helical anchor
plate shown constant variation.
3. From the present analysis is also examined that by increasing the number of the helical
plate and by keeping the depth and diameter of plates constant, pullout capacity also
varies as a linear function.

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