A study of soil nailing using bamboo

Abstract

Soil nailing system is a preventive method that utilized to stabilize the slope and minimize the soil creep effect. The objective of this research are to identify the safety factor of slope stability using bamboo and steel rebar soil nails with 7 m nail length and 1.5 m spacing in clay and sand models. Second objective is to determine the effectiveness of bamboo as in soil nailing by using program finite element method (FEM) in study the influence of nail length 5 m, 7 m and 9 m with spacing 1 m, 1.5 m and 2 m for both soil models. Consolidation analysis and phi / c reduction are methods adopted in this research in order to obtain the results for the both soil models. The safety factor of each nails is analyzed by phi/c reduction method, while consolidation method is used to analyze the axial load and bending moment of each nails. In addition, the soil creep effect, horizontal and vertical displacement of soil structure is clearly presented and analyzed on consolidation stage. The safety factor of last bamboo and steel rebar soil nail are approximately 1.4 in clay model and 1.7 in sand model. Both models are above 1.35 which is minimum requirement stated by FHWA (2003). Thus, bamboo is capable to replace steel as reinforcement of soil nail. Besides that, the most cost effectiveness cases of bamboo soil nail is 5 m length of soil nail with 1 m nails spacing in both models. This size has fulfilled the minimum safety factor and horizontal displacement requirements stated by FHWA 2003, which are approximately 1.4 and 0.02 m in clay model, while 1.7 and 0.008 m in sand model.