Study of the Effects of Particle Size on the Pre-Seismic Behavior of Physical Models of Dry Granular Soils

To study the dynamics of embankment models, which is the basis for the construction of many engineering structures, physical modeling with different scales can be performed. The pre-seismic behavior of physical models has a great impact on the subsequent results of their seismic modeling. Appropriate experiments in this field can be used for pre-seismic examination of physical models. Free vibration and impact tests are among these tests (Dezi et al., 2012; Capatti et al., 2018; Kramer, 1996). Impact pulse tests (IPT) can be used to determine the natural frequency characteristics of physical models. Interpretation of frequency responses provides researchers with appropriate pre-seismic parameters. According to the evaluation of these findings in the first step, a suitable geometric scale can be selected for physical modeling. In addition, the relationship between soil conditions in terms of density and particle size and frequency response quantities of physical models is also determined. In this paper pre-seismic simulations of a small-scale physical model of a granular soil layer inside a rigid physical modeling box are developed.