IDEERS Research@Bristol - Soil

To find out how the soil and retaining wall behave when they are shaken together. As they shake, the wall exerts forces on the soil and the soil exerts forces on the wall. This is complicated behaviour, so the tests were needed to understand it better. The information from this type of test helps engineers design retaining walls to resist the forces on them during earthquakes.

Retaining Wall

The shear stack was fixed to the shaking-table. Then a retaining wall was set up in the shear stack and soil poured in behind it. This arrangement was then tested for different earthquakes. (Why?) The movement of the soil was measured with electronic instruments called "strain gauges", and the movement of the wall was measured using accelerometers.

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Soils
Retaining Walls

from Bristol University