Wave propagation through soils in centrifuge testing

TL;DR

This paper presents a new method for simulating and analyzing wave propagation in soils using centrifuge models, including an innovative excitation device and analytical tools for damping and dispersion.

Contribution

Introduces a novel drop-ball excitation device and analytical framework for wave propagation in centrifuge soil models, accounting for reflections and damping effects.

Findings

Effective wave excitation with the drop-ball device

Analytical description of wave damping and dispersion

Method to remove boundary reflections using homomorphic filtering

Abstract

Wave propagation phenomena in soils can be experimentally simulated using centrifuge scale models. An original excitation device (drop-ball arrangement) is proposed to generate short wave trains. Wave reflections on model boundaries are taken into account and removed by homomorphic filtering. Propagation is investigated through dispersion laws. For drop-ball experiments, spherical wave field analysis assuming linear viscoelasticity leads to a complete analytical description of wave propagation. Damping phenomena are examined and evaluated using this description.