Contenido Centrifuge Modelling for Civil Engineers

Solve Complex Ground and Foundation Problems

Presenting more than 25 years of teaching and working experience in a wide variety of centrifuge testing, the author of Centrifuge Modelling for Civil Engineers fills a need for information about this field. This text covers all aspects of centrifuge modelling. Expertly explaining the basic principles, the book makes this technique accessible to practicing engineers and researchers.

Appeals to Non-Specialists and Specialists Alike

Civil engineers that are new to the industry can refer to this material to solve complex geotechnical problems. The book outlines a generalized design process employed for civil engineering projects. It begins with the basics, and then moves on to increasingly complex methods and applications including shallow foundations, retaining walls, pile foundations, tunnelling beneath existing pile foundations, and assessing the stability of buildings and their foundations following earthquake-induced soil liquefaction. It addresses the use of modern imaging technique, data acquisition, and modelling techniques. It explains the necessary signal processing tools that are used to decipher centrifuge test data, and introduces the reader to the specialist aspects of dynamic centrifuge modelling used to study dynamic problems such as blast, wind, or wave loading with emphasis on earthquake engineering including soil liquefaction problems.

    Introduces the equipment and instrumentation used in centrifuge testing
    Presents in detail signal processing techniques such as smoothing and filtering
    Provides example centrifuge data that can be used for sample analysis and interpretation

Centrifuge Modelling for Civil Engineers effectively describes the equipment, instrumentation, and signal processing techniques required to make the best use of the centrifuge modelling and test data. This text benefits graduate students, researchers, and practicing civil engineers involved with geotechnical issues.

Modern geotechnical engineering design in civil engineering

Introduction
Complex role of geotechnical engineers
Role of centrifuge modelling

Need for numerical and physical modelling

Introduction
Use of numerical modelling in foundation design
Need for physical modelling
Benefits of centrifuge modelling
Benefits of numerical modelling
Complementarity of centrifuge modelling and numerical modelling
Summary
Uniform circular motion
Introduction

Uniform circular motion

Basic definitions: centripetal and centrifugal forces
Use of polar coordinates in uniform circular motion
Coriolis force and Euler force
Summary

Principles of centrifuge modelling

Introduction to centrifuge modelling
Principles of centrifuge modelling
Concepts of a field structure, prototype and the centrifuge model
Scaling laws in centrifuge modelling
Modelling of models
Summary
Examples

Geotechnical centrifuges: Some design considerations

Introduction to geotechnical centrifuges
Beam centrifuges
Drum centrifuges
Summary

Errors and limitations in centrifuge modelling

Introduction
Variation in gravity field
Radial gravity field
Particle size effects
Strain rate effects
Coriolis accelerations
Summary

Centrifuge equipment

Model containers
Model preparation techniques
In-flight actuators
In-flight soil characterization techniques
Summary

Centrifuge instrumentation

Introduction
Types of instruments
Deformation measurement
Summary

Centrifuge data acquisition systems

Introduction

Analog to digital conversion
Fundamentals of digital data logging
Time and frequency domains
Signal-to-noise ratio
Aliasing and Nyquist frequency
Filtering
Summary

Shallow foundations

Introduction

Bearing capacity of shallow foundations
Modelling of a shallow foundation in a laboratory
Centrifuge modelling of shallow foundations
Modelling of models
Summary

Retaining walls

Introduction
Retaining wall models at laboratory scale
Simulating retaining walls in a centrifuge
Centrifuge testing of cantilever retaining walls
Anchored retaining walls
Centrifuge testing of L-shaped walls
Centrifuge modelling of propped walls
Summary

Pile foundations

Introduction
Laboratory testing of pile foundations
Centrifuge modelling of pile foundations
Centrifuge modelling of pile installation
Centrifuge modelling of laterally loaded piles
Centrifuge modelling of tension piles
Negative skin friction in piles
Large-diameter monopiles
Summary

Modelling the construction sequences

Advanced centrifuge modelling
Construction sequence modelling
Modelling of staged excavations in front of a retaining wall
Modelling the interaction between a retaining wall and a building
Influence of diaphragm walls on a pile foundation
Modelling of propped retaining wall
Tunneling below an existing pile foundation
Tunneling below existing pipelines
Tunneling below a masonry structure
Summary

Dynamic centrifuge modelling

Modelling of dynamic events
Dynamic scaling laws
Discrepancies between general and dynamic scaling laws
Earthquake simulation in centrifuges
Saturation of centrifuge models
Centrifuge modelling of the dynamic soil-structure interaction problems
Centrifuge modelling of liquefaction problems
Summary

References