Fabrication and Testing of a Laminar Shear Soil Box for a Shaking-Table Test

Abstract

A rectangular laminar shear rectangular soil box was designed and fabricated that consisted of multilayer steel frames to minimize the influence of the boundary effect of soil boxes used for the soil–structure shaking-table tests. Omnidirectional rolling bearings were placed between the vertical adjacent frames of the soil box, allowing the frame to rotate in any direction out of plane. The dynamic characteristics of the laminar shear soil box are analyzed based on computer modeling and the shaking table’s movement. Results showed that the natural frequency and damping ratio of the laminar shear soil box were considerably different from those of the soil sample. The acceleration of time history and the frequency spectrum of each measuring point at the same depth of the soil sample were highly consistent, and the boundary effect index associated with each measuring point was low. The influence of the boundary effect can be effectively eliminated using the laminar shear soil box; therefore, it can be used in the soil–structure shaking-table tests.