Plastic deformation behaviour of composite breakwaters under earthquake shaking

摘要

This paper focuses on predicting the seismic plastic deformation behaviour of composite breakwaters that rest on sand foundations. For this purpose a realistic cyclic- plasticity model for soil was incorporated in an analysis procedure in terms of the method of finite elements. Also, a comprehensive set of centrifugal shaking-table tests were performed on sand foundations with a wide range of relative densities. A comparison of the predicted and measured performances of the caisson settlement clearly indicates the importance of the degree of compaction in the foundation sand on a quantitative basis.