Soft soil deposits are extensively encountered in the coastal regions of India. The rapid urbanization near the coastal regions resulted in increased construction activities on the soft soil deposits. The foundation structures of guyed transmission towers, telecommunication masts, and waterfront structures like sea walls, constructed over these geologically young sediments, are designed to resist uplift forces. The plate anchors are commonly used as foundation elements to provide pullout resistance to the structures by transmitting the forces to the soil at a specific embedment depth. A short period of cyclic disturbance, caused by wind, wave, or tide, can reduce the pullout capacity of the anchor in soft soils. The pullout load resisted by the plate anchor is often lower due to the loss of undrained shear strength of soil after cyclic loading history. The pullout capacity of plate anchors can be enhanced by grouping the anchors, increasing the anchor size and depth of embedment. Even though a few studies have offered helpful information on the efficiency of geosynthetics in improving the pullout resistance of the anchor, the cyclic response of anchors in reinforced soft clays has not been investigated adequately.
In the present research, an attempt was made to study the cyclic and post-cyclic pullout behaviour of anchors in soft soils and investigate plate anchors' performance in geotextile reinforced soils through laboratory model tests. Strain-controlled monotonic and cyclic pullout tests are conducted on embedded plate anchors. The results obtained in the experimental studies will be presented, and the outcomes will be discussed in the seminar.