What is Soil Nailing?

Nailing is a construction technique that provide the stability of soil in areas where landslides might become problematic. In this method steel reinforcement bars are inserted into the soil and anchored to the soil strata to prevent landslides.

Soil Nailing Common Applications

Soil nailing is an effective solution for stabilizing a wide range of geotechnical structures such as trenches, retaining walls, Slope, Tunnel portals and soil abutments. However this method is not recommended for walls behind clayey soils, clean sands.

Soil Nailing Process

Drilling to a certain depth is the first step of construction procedure. Nails are going to be placed in the holes. Then, grout is fed into the soil to secure the nail. Finally, a shot-Crete layer is usually placed as a covering material, to protect the exposed nail against erosion. Since the presence of water is problematic, using a proper drainage system is necessary in soil nail wall construction. In some cases, nails might be coated by a layer of epoxy as a protection against erosion.

Advantages and Drawbacks

Nailing is generally less noisy and cheaper in comparison to other methods. Besides it is flexible for a wide range of wall geometry and dimensions. considering its short installation time, it can be very useful and effective way in areas with high traffic loads. Though, like any method, some limitations do exist. First of all it is not suitable for sand and gravels or for areas with a high water table. For expansive soils, nails are more likely to get looser and slip during a long period of time. And finally this method requires a high degree of skills to be performed.

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