Design and test verification of a cylindrical 3D laminar shear soil container for use on shaking tables

摘要

Shaking table test is an effective method to study the soil-structure dynamic interaction under earthquake conditions. However, during the design process of the soil container, it is usually impossible to simulate the soil-structure dynamic interaction for three-dimensional (3D) seismic input. In this study, a cylindrical 3D laminar shear soil container was designed for use in the shaking table test. This soil container is composed of 1 base plate, 18 H-shaped laminar frames, 144 3D limit connectors, and 8 guardrails, with the characteristics including large stiffness, light weight, and 3D shear movement. The soil container simulates the free site boundary conditions and minimizes the boundary effect, which meets the requirements of the shaking table test to implement the soil-structure dynamic interaction during 3D seismic input. Moreover, a series of shaking table tests was performed to verify the performance test requirements of the container and to measure the seismic response of the soil. The results of this study indicate that the container does not impose significant boundary effects and is able to maintain 3D soil column behavior.