Date of Award:

5-2002

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Committee Chair(s)

James A. Bay

Committee

James A. Bay

Committee

Loren R. Anderson

Committee

Joseph A. Caliendo

Committee

Kevin C. Womack

Abstract

This paper reports on the pullout test performance of welded-wire reinforcing mats. A 126-foot high mechanically stabilized earth wall was constructed at Kennecott Utah Copper. In the lower half of the wall, single lengths of 50-foot long welded-wire mats were used. In the top half of the wall, two lengths of 50-foot mats were overlapped 10 feet to create 90-foot mats. This 10-foot "lap zone" was investigated in this study.

The finite element program Plaxis was used to investigate several pullout test parameters: overburden pressure, gap width, boundary effects, and horizontal spacing of transverse elements from the pullout box face.

Physical pullout tests were performed in a scale pullout box to compare test configurations with single and multiple layers of mats, and test configurations with single and multiple lap zones. Finally, a Plaxis model of the scale pullout box was created to compare the finite element and pullout test results.

Checksum

d81427680ab1e9c694ece2d750866423

Download

Share

COinS

Copyright for this work is retained by the student. If you have any questions regarding the inclusion of this work in the Digital Commons, please email us at .