Experimental and Numerical Study on Tensile Behavior of Double-Twisted Hexagonal Gabion Wire Mesh

Double-twisted hexagonal gabion wire mesh is a type of reinforced soil material that is used in gabion retaining walls to stabilize the soil slope in geotechnical engineering. In this study, a series of tensile tests were conducted to investigate the tensile behavior of hexagonal gabion wire mesh. Meanwhile, numerical models of gabion wire mesh were built to investigate the whole tensile loading-strain process. The influence of wire diameter, mesh width, and mesh length on the tensile strength of hexagonal gabion wire mesh were evaluated based on laboratory tests and numerical simulation. The quantitative relationship of tensile strength versus wire diameter, mesh width, and mesh length was typically fitted by a quadratic function, linear function, and monotonically decreasing exponential function. The numerical result presents a good consistency with those obtained from the experiment. The result of the loading-strain curve obtained by both experiment and simulation exhibits an "S" shape with a distinct serrated characteristic. The loading-strain curve can be divided into the following four stages: mesh distortion stage, wire stretching stage, overall yield stage, and wire fracture stage, which well reflects the tensile behavior of double-twisted hexagonal wire mesh. The tensile behavior of gabion wire mesh is influenced by the structure pattern of wire mesh and the mechanical characteristic of steel wire.