Insight into soil–anchor interface frictional resistance for dynamically installed maverick anchor

This paper investigates soil–anchor interface frictional resistance, linking directly to the mobilised soil failure mechanisms, during the dynamic installation of a maverick anchor in clay. Systematic finite-element analyses were performed using Abaqus/CEL, varying the undrained shear strength of the soil and impact velocity of the anchor. The numerical model incorporated the recently developed integrated nodal frictional algorithm (INFA) for precisely capturing the behaviour of the interface between soil and anchor. The performance of the maverick anchor, in terms of final embedment depth, and end bearing and frictional resistance profiles, was compared with that of other existing and proposed anchors. The results showed that the maverick anchor has achieved remarkable embedment depths by effectively reducing interface frictional resistance. Interestingly, contact area, between the surface of the installing anchor and the adjacent soil, varied with penetration velocity and corresponding soil failure mechanics, influencing frictional resistance at a penetration depth. Thus, a new factor (termed the ‘corrected cavity expansion factor’) was introduced to account for the evolving contact area in relation to the soil failure mechanisms. Finally, the application of the corrected cavity expansion factor for assessing anchor tip embedment depth using an expression based on Newton’s second law of motion was highlighted.