Energy dissipation & cyclic soil behaviour

Is energy dissipation the key to predict cyclic soil behaviour?

Research team:

Stavroula Kontoe, David M G Taborda, Julia Moller 

Funder:

Leverhulme Trust 

Research period:

2022-2024 

 

Summary: 

High-speed railways, construction of deep foundations, offshore wind generators and infrastructure in earthquake-prone regions, all share cyclic loading patterns which are rapidly changing direction and amplitude. These cyclic loads are then transferred to the supporting soil. Therefore, the safe and economic design of a wide range of structures is crucially reliant on our ability to simulate soil behaviour under repeated, cyclic loading. Current methodologies are mostly empirical, problem-specific and offer inadequate accuracy. We aim to develop a novel, unified computational approach to address this problem based on the unique links, identified experimentally, between dissipated energy and soil behaviour. 

Evaluation of energy dissipation in element tests: simulated stress-paths in cyclic simple shear conditions under uniform and irregular loading (left) and residual excess pore pressure ratio against normalised dissipated energy compared to experimental data by Azeiteiro et al. (2017) (right)
Evaluation of energy dissipation in element tests: simulated stress-paths in cyclic simple shear conditions under uniform and irregular loading (left) and residual excess pore pressure ratio against normalised dissipated energy compared to experimental data by Azeiteiro et al. (2017) (right)

 

Key outputs: 

Moller, J. K. (2023). IC MAGE Model 14 – bounding surface plasticity model for sands under static and cyclic loading (1.1). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7995996  

Moller, J. K., Kontoe, S., Taborda, D. M. G (2023) Numerical investigation of energy dissipation in liquefiable soil deposits. SECED 2023 Conference, Cambridge, UK. 

 

References: 

Azeiteiro, R. J. N., Coelho, P. A. L. F., Taborda, D. M. G. & Grazina, J. C. D. (2017) Energy-based evaluation of liquefaction potential under non-uniform cyclic loading. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, 92, 650–665. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2016.11.005.