Horizontal Pullout Capacity of a Group of Two Vertical Strip Anchors Plates Embedded in Sand

The horizontal pullout capacity of a group of two vertical strip anchor plates placed along the same vertical plane in sand, has been determined by using the lower bound finite element limit analysis. The effect of vertical spacing (S) between the anchor plates on the magnitude of the total group horizontal failure load (P_uT) has been determined for different combinations of H/B, δ/ϕ and ϕ. The magnitude of P_uT has been obtained in terms of a group efficiency factor, η_γ, with respect to the failure load for a single vertical plate with the same H/B. The magnitude of η_γ becomes maximum corresponding to a certain critical S/B, which has been found to lie between 0.5 and 0.8. The value of η_γ for a given S/B has been found to become larger for greater values of H/B, ϕ, and δ.