The practice of testing ground nails

Abstract

The soil nailing construction technique is often used to stabilise a ground mass by installing reinforcing elements (nails). The European Standard EN 14490:2010 defines general principles for execution, supervision, testing and monitoring of soil nailing. This paper presents tests results obtained in several ground nails executed in recent geotechnical works. These tests were carried out in sacrificial nails, before and during the works. As shown in this paper, the execution of the nails, the test system and test procedures affect their results quality. Thus, a critical analysis of the tests results is performed to assess the behaviour of the ground nails, framed by EN 14490:2010, in accordance with the design and contract specifications.