EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN OF SHAKING TABLE TESTS FOR SEISMIC FAILURE RESPONSE OF PILE-GROUP-SUPERSTRUCTURE SUBJECTED TO LIQUEFACTION-INDUCED LATERAL SPREADING

To study the failure mechanism of pile-group-superstructures subjected to liquefaction-induced lateral spreading, large-scale shaking table tests were conducted employing the large-scale geotechnical shake table facility at the State Key Laboratory of Building Safety and Environment, China Academy of Building Research. For this purpose, the overall design of a series of experiments is introduced. The sample preparation and structure design, the layout of various sensors, the application of new sensors, the selection of ground motions and the input sequence arrangement are described in detail. Based on the experimental data, the boundary effect of the laminar shear box is analyzed. The lateral soil displacements directly measured by the shape acceleration array (SAA) are evaluated. The results show that the boundary effect of the laminar shear box is insignificant, and SAA can effectively measure lateral soil displacements. These provide support for the comparative analysis of the series of experiments. Finally, the macroscopic phenomena of large lateral deformation of soil and plastic failure of pile foundation are achieved and the expected goal is realized, which indicates that the series of experimental design are reasonable. The experimental designs provide a systematic and complete method for similar experiments in the future.