E-Defense Improved Performance and Possible Geotechnical Model Tests on Liquefaction Behavior for Saturation Evaluation

Abstract eng:
E-Defense is the earthquake testing facility with the largest three-dimensional shake table and successfully completed 80 shaking tests so far, including three tests on liquefaction problems. When E-Defense completed 40 shake-table tests, the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku earthquake hit a wide area in the eastern Japan and its ground motion with long duration led to extensive damage induced by liquefaction. After this earthquake, because researches on behavior under strong, longduration, long-period ground motion was emphasized to prepare a future megathrust earthquake probably hitting Japan, EDefense expanded its shaking performance to simulate long-duration, long-period input motion to a large-scale model specimen. This expanded performance is enabled by the improvement work for pressurized hydraulic fluid supply to the table actuating system. Employing this improved performance, the authors plan a shaking test on liquefaction behavior specially focusing on various saturation conditions so as to clarify the mechanism and develop saturation-evaluation procedure for countermeasures against liquefaction. Prior to the planned E-Defense test, authors and colleagues conducts a shaking test of model grounds with different saturation conditions at the Large-scale Earthquake Simulator for investigation of the feasibility of the test. In this paper, the E-Defense improved performance and some shaking tests are introduced. The paper also provides the idea of a possible E-Defense shaking test on liquefaction phenomena and the outline of the preliminary shaking test to examine its feasibility.

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