Abstract:
I will present the results of tests conducted to characterize the pullout force of an anchor buried in cohesionless soils. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to understand how key measures of fin geometry affect an anchor’s pullout force. To generalize the data collected, I propose a dimensionless model for predicting the performance of arbitrary fin geometries in various cohesionless soils. Soils used include sand, GRC-1 (lunar regolith simulant), and MMS-1 (Martian regolith simulant). I will also present tests conducted to understand the performance of stacked-fin anchor configurations and the influence of anchor insertion methods on performance. Lastly, I’ll discuss guidelines for pullout force estimation and anchor morphology optimization.

Research Qualifier Committee:
Dimi Apostolopoulos
David Wettergreen
Aaron Johnson
Joe Bartels