DISPLACEMENT FIELD MEASUREMENT IN TRANSPARENT SOILS

Abstract eng:
Model tests to measure three-dimensional deformation patterns within a soil mass are limited by the fact that soil sensors do not provide a continuous image of the measured continuum. Additionally, soil sensors exhibit static and dynamic characteristics, which are different from those of the surrounding soils, and therefore can change the response of the measured continuum. The fundamental premise of this research is that transparent synthetic soil surrogates can be used to overcome these difficulties using optical techniques. Transparent synthetic soil models are formed using transparent particles made of amorphous silica powders or gels and pore fluid of matching refractive index. A system consisting of a laser source and a line-generating lens was used to optically slice transparent synthetic soil models. A digital camera was used to capture speckle images of the laser slices before and after deformation. Next digital image correlation (DIC) was performed by comparing the two images to obtain the displacement field in the transparent soil model. The accuracy of the DIC technique was evaluated. An example model consisting of a strip footing on transparent amorphous silica gel is presented, where spatial deformations in the model were measured using the proposed methodology and compared to finite element analysis.

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