Propagation of Shock Waves in the Ground

The Method of Characteristics, which forms the basis for the solution of certain flow problems in the dynamics of compressible fluids, is applied to the study of shock-wave propagation in the ground. The soil behavior is characterized by the one-dimensional pressure-deformation relation which is expressed analytically herein using a small number of parameters representing basic soil properties. A completely automatic computer program has been developed that allows pressure, displacements, and particle velocities to be determined as functions of time and position. The results of a series of numerical computations are presented that show the influence of the basic soil properties. The work is limited to the one-dimensional case.