Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 5
A REVIEW OF LARGE-SCALE TESTING FACILITIES IN GEOTECHNICAL
EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING
Ahmed Elgamal
1
, Kyriazis Pitilakis
2
,Dimitrios Raptakis
3
, Jacques Garnier
4
, SP Gopal
Madabhushi
5
, ArturPinto
6
,Jamieson Steidl
7
,HarryEStewart
8
,Kenneth HStokoe
9
,
Fabio Taucer
10
, Kohji Tokimatsu
11
,and John WWallace
12
1
Dept. of Structural Engineering, University of California, San Diego, USA
2
Dept. of Civil Engineering, Aristotle U of Thessaloniki, Greece
3
Dept. of Civil Engineering, Aristotle U of Thessaloniki, Greece
4
Soil Mechanics and Site Survey Div., LCPC, Bouguenais, France
5
Reader in Geotech. Eng. & Asst. Director (Schofield Centre) Trumpington St,
Cambridge, UK
6
ELSA Laboratory, IPSC, Joint Research Center, Ispra (VA), Italy
7
Associate Research Seismologist, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa
Barbara, USA
8
Civil and Environ. Eng., Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
9
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Eng., U Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA
10
ELSA Laboratory, IPSC, Joint Research Center, Ispra (VA), Italy
11
Dept. of Architecture and Building Eng., Tokyo Institute of Tech., Japan
12
Civil and Environ. Eng., University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Abstract.
Inthisnewcentury,newlarge-scaletestingfacilitiesarebeingdevelopedworldwidefor
earthquake engineering research. Concurrently, the advances in Information Technology (IT) are
increasingly allowing unprecedented opportunities for: (i) remote access and tele-presence during
extendedremoteoff-siteexperimentation,(ii)hybridsimulationofentirestructuralsystemsthrough
amulti-siteexperimentationandcomputationaloverallmodel,and(iii)near-realtimedataarchival,
processing and sharing. In this paper, a representative set of such state-of-the-art testing facilities
is presented. Attention is focused on geotechnical earthquake engineering applications including
instrumented test sites, mobile and large-scale testing laboratories, and centrifuge testing. Using
such facilities, a number of collaborative research efforts are also included for illustration. The
potential for furtherworldwide joint activities isfinally highlighted.
1. Introduction
Over the last 50 years, earthquake engineers have relied on data from laboratory experi-
mentsandfrompost-earthquakereconnaissanceeffortstogainknowledgeandconfidence
