Static pullout resistance of anchor chains in cohesionless soil-laboratory testing

Abstract

This paper investigates the static pullout resistance of anchor chains embedded into cohesionless soil. The anchor chains, which are made of steel, were buried into Jumunjin sand whose relative density was set to approximately 60%. The anchor chains were horizontally pulled out through a displacement of 70mm in laboratory model tests. Three different embedment depths and seven different numbers of chain links were adopted. The pullout resistance of the anchor chains was found to increase with increasing embedment depth and the number of anchor chain links. The measured resistance was significantly higher than the calculated frictional resistance, implying that the passive resistance at the front of the anchor chain significantly contributes to the pullout resistance. The contribution of the passive resistance tends to decrease with increasing number of chain links.