Influence of an anchor head on detection of soil anchorage load

Ground anchorages are typical supports for geotechnical structures. A non-destructive condition monitoring technique for monitoring rock anchorages, has been used as a basis for establishing a model looking at the integrity of soil anchorages. The system is based on observing the dynamic response from anchorages to which an impulse of known intensity has been applied. The soil anchorages, in this study, are investigated by means of geotechnical centrifuge modelling to understand the dynamic responses of such systems. A centrifuge testing system is developed to conduct such tests using a purpose-built testing robot. This paper presents a further development of the physical model in which additional instrumentation is included in order to obtain load/deflection information of the anchor head, which has been proven crucial for monitoring load. Scaled soil anchorages, placed in dry sand are examined and preliminary results are shown and discussed in the paper.