EXCAVATION OF SLOPE REINFORCED TEMPORARY BY SOIL NAILING USING IN-FLIGHT EXCAVATOR IN CENTRIFUGE

In Japan, there are approximately 30 to 40 slope failure accidents every year, causing injury to workers and damage to property. It has been reported that more than 50% of these accidents occurred during excavating or leveling the lower parts of the slope toe, indicating the necessity of developing a temporary and simple slope reinforced method to prevent such accidents during slope cutting works. Although many natural ground reinforced earth method for permanent have been developed to keep the stability of a steep cut slope, most of them are either difficult to set up under the construction or are too expensive to use at small to medium-sized slope cutting sites. In this study, as a simple and cost-effective slope reinforced method for small to medium-sized slope cutting sites, a temporary soil nailing was considered, and the reinforcing mechanism of soil nailing was investigated by centrifuge model tests. An in-flight excavator, which can excavate the model slope in high centrifuge acceleration environment, was used in this paper for simulating the slope cutting works. The deformation of mode slope during excavation was measured by PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry) and the deformation processes in the model slopes with and without the soil nailing were compared in the strain field.