Soil Nailing - Rock Bolt or Pile

Question

Good morning. I have seen some people model a soil nailing problem using embedded beam with pile behavior and others with rock bolt behavior. In which cases should a soil nailing problem be modeled considering a pile behavior for embedded beams?

Stefanos Papavasileiou · Answer

Hello Edwar, 
 The Behaviour property of the embedded beam is there to make it easy for a user to pick their modelling type based on what they want. 
 Automatically PLAXIS has some predefined settings when you change from Pile to Rock bolt to Grout body. As described by Kousik, this has to do with the connection point. 
 In the case of the pile, the connection is, by default, Rigid , implying a rigid connection between the structural element and the surrounding soil. In the case of the grout body, this is set to Free , meaning the structural element is only connected to a structure (typically the anchor rod) and not to the surrounding soil. 
 You can read everything about this subject in our Reference manual (section 5.6.3.3, PLAXIS 2D 2023.1). 
 In any case, any fellow geotechnical engineer using this option can share their reasoning, too.