3200 SOIL NAILINGSoil Nailing Section 3200 3201 SCOPE The specifications shall apply to soil nailing works as required to be carried out under the Contract or as directed by the Ex. 3202 NAIL INSTALLATION METHODS 3202.1 Generally used soil nail installation techniques in practice are: (i) drilled and grouted soil nails, and (ii) driven soil nails. Grouted nails are recommended for all types of soil nail walls applications, and in particular, for walls with vertical height more than 7 m Driven nails shall only be used when wail heights are smaller (less than or upto 7.0 m). The major difference between the two is the pullout resistance of the soil nails and grouted soil nails are expected to have higher pull out resistance. Pull out test is desirable to check the values of pullout resistance which is useful in soil nail design. 3202.2 Drilled and grouted soil nails (or simply grouted nails), are approximately 75 mm to 200 mm diameter nail holes drilled in the soil mass to be retained, which shall be followed by placing of steel reinforcement bars (tendon) and the grouting of the drill hole. 3202.3 Driven soil nails are relatively small in diameter (20 mm to 25 mm) and are mechanically driven into the ground. They are usually spaced approximately 0.5 m to 1.0 m apart. 3203 CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS Following covers the general materials required for the constru structure. n of typical soil nailing 3203.1 Reinforcement Bar (Nail or Tendon) The reinforcing element (tendon) shall be high strength steel reinforcing bar conforming to 1S:1786 with a characteristic tensile strength of 415 MPa or higher which may be threaded at ‘one end, Minimum recommended diameter of reinforcement bar (tendon) is 16 mm. 3203.2 Nait head The nail head shall comprise of following main components: the bearing-plate, hex nut, and washers; and the headed-stud. The bearing plate with a central hole (with diameter greater than reinforcement bar) shall be of minimum Fe250 grade steel, typically square in shape with 200 to 250 mm side dimension and 19 mm thickness. Washers and nuts shall be made of steel with a grade consistent with that of the nail bar commonly of 415 MPa or higher. Nuts may be tightened with a hand-wrench. The headed-stud connection may consist of four headed studs welded near the four corners of the bearing plate to provide anchorage of the 821Section 3200 Soil Nailing nail head into the permanent facing. For temporary walls, the bearing plate shall be on the outside face of the shotcrete facing 3203.3 Grout Grout for soil nails is required to fil the annular space between the nail bar and the surrounding ground, and for shotcreting of the temporary facing. Grout for soil nail walls is commonly a neat cement grout with the water/cement ratio typically ranging from 0.4 to 0.5. Grout mix shall be prepared in accordance with IS:9012. Grout shall have a minimum 28 days characteristic strength of 20 MPa. For filling up nail holes, grout shall be pumped shortly after the nail bar is placed in the drillhole to reduce the potential for hole squeezing or caving. In sofid nail bar applications, the grout may be injected by tremie methods through a grout pipe, which is previously inserted to the bottom of the drillhole, until the grout completely fills the drillhole. 3203.4 Centralizers Centralizers are devices made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or other synthetic materials that are installed at various locations along the length of each nail bar to ensure that a minimum thickness of grout completely covers the nail bar. Centralizers shall be installed at regular intervals, typically not exceeding 2.5 m, along the length of the nail and at a distance of about 0.5 m from each end of the nail. 3204 FACING TYPES Soil nail walls are generally provided with two types of facings: (a) temporary facing and (b) permanent facing, 3204.4 Temporary Facing ‘Temporary facing shall be constructed by providing reinforcement in the form of welded wire mesh (conforming to 1S:1566) throughout the wall face, and by additional bearing plates (see Clause 3203.2.) and waler bars (rebars of smaller lengths placed in the vicinity of nail head) at the nail heads; which is, subsequently shotcreted in accordance with 1$:9012. Overall temporary facing thickness shall vary from 75 mm to 200 mm. 3204.2 Permanent Facing Permanent facing may be constructed as cast-in-place reinforced cement concrete conforming to 1S:456, precast concrete or any Suitable material to achieve desired strength and aesthetics. Reinforcement in the permanent facing may be adopted in the form of welded wire mesh or reinforcement bars in either direction, Permanent facing shall be connected to the temporary facing by means of headed-studs (usually four numbers per plate) welded ‘on the bearing plates installed during construction temporary facing. Minimum thickness of permanent facing shall not be less than 200 mm 822Soil Nailing Section 3200 3205 CONSTRUCTION SEQUENCE 3205.1 Typical sequence of construction of a soil nail wall shall be in accordance with following steps Step 1 Excavation of initial cut of 1.0 m to 2.0 m depending upon the capacity of in- situ soil to stand unsupported for about 12-24 hrs; Step 2 Drilling hole for nail; Step 3 Installation of nails followed by grouting and placing of drainage strip; Step 4: Placing of construction facing and installation of bearing plates; Step 5: Repetition of process till final level is reached; and Step 6: Placing of final facing 3206 GEOTECHNICAL ASPECTS 3206.1 Soil Investi For soil nail walis more than 30 m long, exploratory borings should be spaced between 30 to 60 m along the proposed centerline of the wall. For walls less than 30 m long, at least one boring is necessary along the proposed centerline of the wall, Borings are also necessary in front and behind the proposed wall. Borings behind the wall should be located within a distance up to 1 to 1.5 times the height of the wall behind the wall and should be spaced up to 45 m along the wall alignment. Borings in front of the wall should be located within a distance up to 0.75 times the wall height in front of the wall and should be spaced up to 60 m along the wall alignment. The depth of borings should extend at least one full wall height below the bottom of the excavation. 3206.2 Bond Strength The bond strength is the mobilized shear resistance along the soil-grout interface. The bond strength adopted for the design of soil nails 's commonly based on conservative estimates obtained from field correlation studies and local experience in similar conditions. Consequently, some percentage of the soil nails shall be load tested according to standard procedure (pullout tests) in the field to verify bond strength design, 3206.3, Suitable In-Situ Ground Conditions Following are the in-situ conditions considered favorable for the prospective use of soil nailing technique. a) Soil shall be able to stand unsupported to a deptit of about 1 m ~ 2m high vertical or nearly vertical cut for 12-24 hours. 823Section 3200 Sot Nailing b) Groundwater table shail be sufficiently below level of the lowermost soit nail at all cross-sections, c) Favorable soils: Stiff to hard fine -grained soils, dense to very dense granular soils with some apparent cohesion, weathered rock with no weakness planes and glacial soils 3207 ANALYSIS OF FAILURE MODES 3207.1 Analysis of various failure modes of soil nail structures shail be performed using allowable stress design methodology in accordance with IRC publication “Interim Guidelines for Soil Nailing Technique in Highway Engineering Applications” or any other state-of-art standard for analysis, design and construction of soil nail walls. For rigorous analyses, use of computational tools based on advanced numerical techniques such as finite element method, is strongly recommended. 3208 INITIAL DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS 3208.1 Wall layout Establish the layout of the soil nail wall, including: (1) wall height; (2) length of the wall (3) backslope; and (4) wal! face batter. Wall face batter typically ranges from 0° to 10°. The evaluation of the wall layout also includes developing longitudinal profile of the wall, locating wall appurtenances (e.g.., traffic barriers, utilities, and drainage systems), and establishing ROW limitations. 3208.2 Soil Nail Vertical and Horizontal Spacing Typically, same nail spacing can be adopted in both horizontal S,, and vertical S, directions. Nail spacing ranges from 1.25 to 2 m (commonly 1.5 m) for conventional drilled and grouted soil nails, and as low as 0.4 m for driven nails. As a general rule, soil nail spacing in horizontal and vertical direction must be such that each nail has an influence area S, « S, < 4m? 3208.3 Soil Nail Pattern on Wall Face The soil nail pattern on wall face may be adopted as one of the following: (1) square (or rectangular); {2} staggered in a triangular pattern; and (3) irregular (at limited locations) depending upon the ease of construction and site-specific constraints. 3208.4 Soil Nail Inclination Soil nails are typically installed at an inclination ranging from 0 to 30 degrees from horizontal with a typical inclination of 10-25 degrees. 824Soil Nailing Section 3200 3208.5 Soil Nail Length and Distribution The distribution of soil nail lengths in a soil nail wall can be selected as either uniform (i.e., only one nail length is used for the entire wall), or variable, where different nail lengths may be used for individual soil nail levels within a wall cross section. Uniform nail pattern is recommended for most applications. 3209 OTHER DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS 3209.1 Loads and Load Combinations Soil nail wallls used on typical highway projects are typically subjected to the following different loads during their service life: (i) Dead loads DL (e.g., weight of the soil nail wall system, lateral earth pressure, weight of a nearby above-ground structure); (ii) Live loads Lt (eg., traffic loads); (il) impact loads IL (e.g., vehicle collision on barriers above soil nail wall); and (iv) earthquake loeds EQ. Following load combinations are recommended to assess the most critical loading condition: (a) DL+LL (b) DL#LL+IL (c) DL+EQ For earthquake loads, allowable stresses shall be increased by 133 percent from the values obtained with factors of safety for static loads. 3209.2 Permissible Soil Nail Wall Deformations The maximum permissible lateral deformation at the top of the soil nail walls constructed in weathered rock and stiff solls is 0.1%H; sandy soils is 0.2%H and for fine-grained soils is 0.3%H. Under no circumstances maximum permissible lateral! deformation shall exceed 0.3%H, where: H is the vertical height of the soil nail wall. Permissible vertical deformation (i., settlement) shall be considered to be same as the permissible horizontal deformation. 3209.3, Drainage Measures 3209.3.1 Short Term Drainage Measures Surface water and groundwater must be controlled both during and after construction of the soil nail wall. A surface water interceptor ditch, excavated along the crest of the excavation and lined with concrete, is a recommended element for controlling surface water flows. Additionally, if ground water impacts are temporary or localized, suitable dewatering measures may be taken for lowering the groundwater table 825Section 3200 Soil Nailing 3209.3.2 Long Term Drainage Measures Long term drainage shall be provided by means of the drainage system comprising of: (i) vertical geo-composite drain strips placed suitably aiong the face of wall (ii) weep holes in the form of perforated PVC pipes of typical diameter as 50-100 mm and 300- 600 mm length, placed through the face at the location of expected localised seepage; (iii) provision of horizontal or slightly inclined drain pipes of typical diameter 50 mm installed at the focations where it is necessary to control the groundwater pressures imposed on the retained soil mass; (iv) installation of permanent interception ditch behind the wall at its crest to prevent surface water runoff from infiltrating behind the wall or flowing over the wall edge; and (¥) provision of a vegetative protective capicover to reduce or prevent water infiltration into the soil 3209.4 Corrosion Protection Corrosion potential of the soil must be evaluated for all permanent soil nail walls and, in some cases, for temporary walls. Corrosion protection measures: (a) Specify a minimum grout cover of 25 mm between the reinforcement nail bar and the soil; (b) recommend epoxy coating of minimum thickness 0.4 mm on the nail bars shall be applied by the manufacturer prior to shipment of nails to the construction site, which is, subsequently to be encased in grout cover; and (c) adopt other site-specific suitable corrosion protection measures. 3210 FIELD PULLOUT TESTING 3210.4 Field pullout testing of soif nails shall be conducted (a) to verify that the nail design loads can be carried without excessive movements and with an adequate safety factor for the service life of the structure, and (b) to verify the adequacy of the contractor's drilling, installation, and grouting operations prior to and during construction of production soil nails. 3210.2 Types of Field Pullout Tests Depending upon the type of test being performed, the maximum test load, the load increments, and the time that each load increment is held shall be determined. To prevent chances of explosive failure of the steel, in no case, the soil nail tendon be stressed to more than 80 percent of its minimum ultimate tensile strength for grade Fe415 steel, or more than 90 percent of the minimum yield strength for grade Fe500 steel. 826Soil Nailing Section 3200 3210.24 Verification Test A verification test on soil nail is performed: (a) to determine the ultimate bond capacity (if carried to pullout failure); (b) verify the design bond factor of safety, and (c) to determine the soil nail load at which excessive creep occurs. Verification tests are generally conducted on non-production “sacrificial” nails as a first order of work prior to construction. 3210.2.2 Proof Test A proof test is typically performed on a specified number of the total number of production soil nails installed. Typically, successful proof tests shall be performed on 5 percent of the production nails in each row or a minimum of 1 test per row. Proof tests provide information necessary to evaluate the ability of production soil nails to safely withstand design loads without excessive structural movement or \ong-term creep over the structure's service life. 3210.2.3 Creep Test Creep tests are generally performed as part of a verification or proof test to ensure that nail design loads can be safely carried throughout the structure service life 3211 MEASUREMENT FOR PAYMENT Measurements for earthwork shall conform to 1S:1200(Part |), concrete work shall conform to IS:1200(Part Il) and steelworks shall conform to IS:1200(Part Vill). Measurement of facia shall be in sq. metres. 3212 RATES Rates for labour, machinery and various structural components shall conform to the local schedule of rates in practice. 3213 REFERENCES 1S:1200(Part |)-1992 Method of Measurement of Building and Civil Engineering Works — EARTHWORK (Fourth Revision) 1S:1200(Part Il)-1974 Method Of Measurement of Building and Civil Engineering Works — CONCRETE WORKS (Third Revision). 1$:1200(Part VIll}-1993 Method of Measurement of Building and Civil Engineering Works — STEELWORK AND IRONWORK (Fourth Revision). 827Section 3200 Soil Nailing 1S:1586-1982 Specification for Hard-Drawn Steel Wire Fabric for Concrete Reinforcement {Second Revision Incorporating Amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 3). 1S:1786-1985 Specification for High Strength Deformed Steel Bars and Wires for Concrete Reinforcement (Third Revision). 1S:456-2000 Plain and Reinforced Concrete — Code of Practice (Fourth Revision). \s:9012-1978 Recommended Practice for Shotereting (Fourth Reprint) IRC publication “Interim Guidelines for Soil Nailing Technique in Highway Engineering Applications" (to be published). 828