Centrifuge and Large-Scale Modeling of Seismic Pore Pressures in Sands: Cyclic Strain Interpretation
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 139, Issue 8
Abstract
Centrifuge modeling of pore pressure buildup in a sand deposit as a result of shaking is evaluated by comparison with a large-scale experiment. In large-scale Test SG-1, a 5.6-m-thick, mildly sloping deposit of hydraulic fill clean Ottawa sand of , was subjected to 5 s of low-intensity base shaking () that induced excess pore pressures short of liquefaction. Three centrifuge experiments using various soil deposits and saturation fluids were conducted and compared with the large-scale test. One of these centrifuge simulations used the same Ottawa sand and of the prototype, a viscous pore fluid, and dry pluviation deposition, which created a soil fabric stiffer than the prototype. The other two centrifuge simulations used silty sand saturated with water. The pore pressure buildup in one of the silty sand tests was in good agreement with the prototype, while the other two centrifuge deposits did not develop any excess pore pressure. The various responses in the four tests are explained by various levels of cyclic soil shear strain using a cyclic strain approach. The cyclic strains in the two tests with no pore pressure were smaller than the threshold strain needed to start pore pressure generation in sands (), while the cyclic strains in the two tests that built up pore pressure were greater than the threshold (). In addition, two more experiments using Ottawa sand were also conducted: a large-scale level-ground test and a centrifuge sloping test subjected to a greater excitation. The results of the six experiments including the two additional tests are very consistent, further verifying the validity of the strain approach and threshold strain for both level-ground and mildly sloping-ground sites.
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Acknowledgments
This paper is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under NEESR-SG Grant No. 0529995. This support is most gratefully acknowledged. The authors are also very grateful to several people for their creative and valuable contributions toward the research reported here. They are Thomas Albrechcinski, Mark Pitman, Jason Hanley, and Nurhan Ecemis from the University at the Buffalo-NEES site; Victoria Bennett, Daisy Lucas, Claudia Medina, Inthuorn Sasanakul, Anthony Tessari, and Javier Ubilla from RPI and the RPI-NEES site; and Ross Boulanger from the University of California, Davis.
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Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 139 • Issue 8 • August 2013
Pages: 1215 - 1234
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 21, 2011
Accepted: Aug 21, 2012
Published online: Jul 15, 2013
Published in print: Aug 1, 2013
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