Estimation of Pullout Capacity of Vertical Plate Anchors in Cohesionless Soil Using MARS

Vertical plate anchors provide an economical solution to safely resist the large horizontal forces experienced by the foundation of different structures such as bulkheads, sheet piles, retaining walls and so forth. This paper develops a multivariate adaptive regression spline (MARS) model-based approach for the determination of horizontal pullout capacity (P _u ) of vertical plate anchors buried in cohesionless soil by utilizing experimental results reported by different researchers. Based on the collection of forty different pullout experimental test results reported in the literature for anchors buried in loose to dense cohesionless soil with an embedment ratio ranges from 1 to 5, a predictive approach for P _u of vertical plate anchors has been developed in terms of non-dimensional pullout coefficient (M _γq ). The capability of the proposed MARS model for estimating the values of M _γq is examined by comparing the results obtained in the present study with those methods available in the literature. Using different statistical error measure criteria, this study indicates that the present approach is efficient in estimating the horizontal pullout capacity of vertical plate anchors as compared to other methods. The sensitivity analysis indicates that the embedment ratio (H/h, where H = embedment depth of anchor, and h = height of anchor) and internal friction angle (ϕ) of soil mass are the two most important parameters for the evaluation of non-dimensional pullout coefficient (M _γq ) using the proposed MARS model.