scholarly journals Effects of the Stiffness of Soft Clay Layer on Strong Motion Response.

2002 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
AKIRA YAMAGUCHI ◽  
MOTOKI KAZAMA ◽  
HIROFUMI TOYOTA ◽  
MASAKI KITAZUME ◽  
TAKAHIRO SUGANO
2000 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 1265-1271 ◽  
Author(s):  
J S Sharma ◽  
D Xiao

Installation of prefabricated vertical drains using a mandrel causes disturbance of clay surrounding the drain, resulting in a "smear" zone of reduced permeability. In this paper, an attempt is made to characterize the smear zone using large-scale laboratory model tests. Two tests, simulating the cases of "no smear" and "with smear," were conducted. Excess pore-water pressures were monitored at seven different locations along the radial direction. In addition, undisturbed samples were collected at various locations in the clay layer for conducting oedometer tests. The distribution of excess pore pressure due to drain installation gave a clear indication of the extent of the smear zone. The effect of reconsolidation on the properties of clay was found to be much greater than that of the remoulding of the clay. The extent of the smear zone was also confirmed from the change in permeability of the clay layer in the smear zone obtained from oedometer tests. The radius of the smear zone is about four times that of the mandrel, and the horizontal permeability of the clay layer in the smear zone is approximately 1.3 times smaller than that in the intact zone.Key words: consolidation, permeability, smear zone, soft clay, vertical drains.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 730-746
Author(s):  
Amanpreet Kaur ◽  
Harvinder Singh ◽  
J. N. Jha

This paper presents the results of three dimensional finite element analysis of laterally loaded pile groups of configuration 1×1, 2×1 and 3×1, embedded in two-layered soil consisting of soft clay at liquid limit overlying dense sand using Plaxis 3D. Effects of variation in pile length (L) and clay layer thickness (h) on lateral capacity and bending moment profile of pile foundations were evaluated by employing different values of pile length to diameter ratio (L/D) and ratio of clay layer thickness to pile length (h/L) in the analysis. Obtained results indicated that the lateral capacity reduces non-linearly with increase in clay layer thickness. Larger decrease was observed in group piles. A non-dimensional parameter Fx ratio was defined to compare lateral capacity in layered soil to that in dense sand, for which a generalized expression was derived in terms of h/L ratio and number of piles in a group. Group effect on lateral resistance and maximum bending moment was observed to become insignificant for clay layer thickness exceeding 40% of pile length. For a fixed value of clay layer thickness, lateral capacity and bending moment in a single pile increased significantly with increase in pile length only up to an optimum embedment depth in sand layer which was found to be equal to three times pile diameter and 0.21 times pile length for pile with L/D 15. Scale effect on lateral capacity has also been studied and discussed. Doi: 10.28991/cej-2021-03091686 Full Text: PDF


1964 ◽  
Vol 54 (5A) ◽  
pp. 1257-1269
Author(s):  
John H. Wiggins

Abstract Empirical equations are derived which relate maximum acceleration, velocity, and displacement computed from strong motion earthquake records to magnitude and distance from source to site. Over fifty earthquakes recorded at three California sites were used in the study. The equations show that earthquake magnitude governs not only the character of response spectra but also the characteristic period content of the earthquake. As an added feature, the reported Modified Mercalli intensities are shown to correlate best with computed response spectra which include only the low period range.


2015 ◽  
Vol 773-774 ◽  
pp. 1502-1507
Author(s):  
Saiful Azhar Ahmad Tajudin ◽  
Mohd Fairus Yusof ◽  
I. Bakar ◽  
Aminaton Marto ◽  
Muhammad Nizam Zakaria ◽  
...  

Construction, buildings and infrastructure founded on soft clays are often affected by settlement problem. Therefore, Prefabricated Vertical Drain (PVD) is one of the best solutions to accelerate soil consolidation by shortening the drainage path. In this study, numerical investigation was carried out to pursue a better understanding of the consolidation behavior of soft clay improved with PVD. The consolidation process accelerated by PVD with surcharge of 50 kPa was analysed using the ABAQUS software by adopting an elastic model. The aim of this study is to compare the settlement and the required time to fully consolidate the soft soil at different drain spacings (1.0 m, 1.5 m and 2.0 m) for two different thickness of the clay layer. The results shows that the time required to completely consolidate the soft soil for 12 m and 20 m thickness of clay layer with different spacings are in the range of 3 months to 66 months. The settlement rate and excess pore water pressure dissipation are increased when the spacing of the drain closer.


1995 ◽  
Vol 85 (4) ◽  
pp. 1116-1126
Author(s):  
Francisco J. Chávez-García ◽  
Jaime Ramos-Martínez ◽  
Evangelina Romero-Jiménez

Abstract In this article, we present an observational investigation of ground motion at Mexico City focused on surface waves. Our purpose is 2-fold; first, to understand incident ground motion during the great Michoacán earthquake of 19 September 1985, and second, to characterize surface waves propagating in the lake-bed zone. To this end we analyze the strong-motion records obtained at Mexico City for the large (MS = 8.1) earthquake of 19 September 1985. It is shown that, in the low-frequency range, we observe the Rayleigh fundamental mode in both the vertical and the radial components, and the Love fundamental mode in the transverse component at all the strong-motion stations. The vertical component also shows the first higher mode of Rayleigh waves. We use a very broadband record obtained at station CU for the smaller (MS = 6.7) earthquake of 14 May 1993 to verify that the dispersion computed from the model of Campillo et al. (1989) represents well the average surface-wave propagation between the coast and Mexico City in the 7- to 10-sec period range. We use this result to assign absolute times to the strong-motion records of the Michoacán event. This allowed us to identify additional wave trains that propagate laterally in directions other than great circle in the 3- to 5-sec period range. These wave trains are identified as Love waves. In a second analysis, we study a set of refraction data obtained during a small-scale (250 m) experiment on the virgin clay of the lake-bed zone. Phase-velocity dispersion curves for several modes of Rayleigh waves are identified in the refraction data and inverted to obtain an S-wave velocity profile. This profile is used as the uppermost layering in a 2D model of Mexico City valley. The results of numerical simulation show that surface waves generated by lateral finiteness of the clay layer suffer large dispersion and attenuation. We conclude that surface waves generated by the lateral heterogeneity of the upper-most stratigraphy very significantly affect ground motion near the edge of the valley, but their importance is negligible for distances larger than 1.5 km from the edge. Thus, locally generated surface waves propagating through the clay layer cannot explain late arrivals observed for the 1985 event. We suggest that the long duration of strong motion is due to the interaction between lateral propagation of waves guided by deep layers (1 to 4 km) and the surficial clay layer. This interaction is possible by the coincidence of the dominant frequency of the uppermost layers and the frequency of the deeply guided waves.


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