Evaluation of In Situ Effective Shear Modulus from Dispersion Measurements

Abstract

A procedure is described for evaluating shear modulus depth profiles of uniformly deposited soil strata. The method combines steady-state vibration techniques for subsoil exploration and results from the analytical treatment of surface wave propagation problems in an elastic half-space with depth-depending stiffness. The model proposed covers a wide range of real soil deposits. The shear modulus variation with depth is obtained from the measured dispersion curve by assigning the surface wave velocity to the soil conditions at a depth of 0.3 times the wavelength.