Abstract: The cohesive zone model is widely used in the fracture numerical simulation of bonded metal members. In order to deeply analyze the interaction between geogrids and soil, the cohesive zone model is adopted at the transverse ribs of geogrids and penalty function method is adopted at the longitudinal ribs to simulate the pullout tests of geogrids. The parameters of model can be obtained from the data of pullout tests on individual ribs. The results show that the cohesive zone model can perfectly simulate the passive resistance of transverse ribs, and the failure mode corresponds to the punching failure mode proposed by Jewell. The passive resistance of the transverse ribs accounts for about 71% of the whole pullout force. The simulated results have well verified the accuracy and feasibility of adopting the cohesive force model at the transverse ribs of the grid.