Journal of Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers ISSN:1738-3692(Print) 2093-7709(Online) 한국농공학회논문집

Greenhouses have been damaged due to the uplift pressure from strong wind, for which rebar piles are often installed near the greenhouse to resist the pressure. For the effective design of rebar piles, it is necessary to access the shear strength of soil on which the greenhouse is constructed. This study experimentally evaluates the shear strength of the soil beneath the greenhouse. Four soil samples were collected from four agricultural sites, and prepared for testing with 75, 80, 85, and 90% compaction rates. One-dimensional unconfined compression test (UC), consolidated-undrained triaxial test (CU), and resonant column test (RC) were performed for the evaluation of shear strength and shear modulus. Generally, the higher shear strength and modulus were observed with the higher compaction rates. In particular, the UC shear strength increases with the increase of #200 sieve passing rate. Resulting from the CU test, the sample with the most of coarse soil had the highest friction angle, but the variation is small among samples. Resulting from the CU and RC tests, the ratio of maximum shear modulus with the major principle stress at failure was the higher at the finer soil. The ratio was two to three times greater than the ratio from the standard sand. This indicates that the shear strength is lower for the fine soil than the coarse soil at the same shear modulus. The results of this study will be a useful resource for the estimation of the pull-out strength of the rebar pile against the uplift pressure.