Important aspects in design of laminar soil container for 1-g shaking table tests

摘要

Earthquake geotechmcal studies can involve different methodologies and approaches such as dynamic soil element tests, reduced scaled models, numerical and analytical models and full scaled field tests. If done properly, scaled model tests can be advantageous for seismic studies due to their ability to give more realistic information about ground acceleration amplification, change in pore pressures in the soil medium, nonlinear behavior of soil, occurrence of failure, and soil structure interaction phenomena This paper describes the important aspects in design, fabrication and commissioning of a single axis laminar shear box for use in seismic geotechnical studies A laminar box is a container which allows 'free' horizontal movement of soil model and it is placed on a shaking table platform to simulate wave propagation during earthquakes through a soil layer of finite thickness The laminar box described in this paper is designed to be used for investigation of the liquefaction phenomena of saturated sand profile on the shaking table test in the Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Seismology - IZIIS, Skopje, Macedonia The numerical analysis and preliminary calculations conducted to study the performance of the laminar box in order to fulfill the design criteria are also taken into consideration Also, important aspects for the expenmental setup of liquefaction studies, characterization of investigated sand, model preparation, and soil properties are explained.