Applications - Example 2

The MUST-SIM facility provides many essential features that aid in significantly advancing the state-of-the-art in integrated seismic testing and analysis. The examples of application of the MUST-SIM Facility may be formulated from different angles. Three such examples are considered here: research needs in seismic risk mitigation, end-user industrial needs, and integration with existing NEES facilities.

Application 2: Testing of Pile Groups or Testing/Analysis of Structures Supported on Piles

Testing of pile groups, structural response from analysis (own weight of wing walls reacts against the axial load on piles; transverse bearing reacts against lateral loads on piles).

The LBCB may also be used to test footings or piles (vertical, battered) on/in soil at the Rantoul soil pit site, depending on size. In such cases, parts of the structure may be tested at full-scale at the Newmark Laboratory or elsewhere within the NEES facilities portfolio or the whole structure may be modeled analytically. Such tests would serve the vital purpose of verifying foundation design and therefore reducing the cases of foundation and soil failure during earthquakes. The problem of battered piles in groups is still an open research topic and full-scale information on their behavior would advance safe and economic design. Moreover, once this type of test is conducted for a specific type of soil, the information obtained may be utilized in new tests where the soil is not tested but modeled in a sub-structuring manner, as described in the previous application, but with physical modeling results included. Finally, strengthening of pile groups using micro-piles is a technique that has proven to be successful (e.g. in post-remedial work after the 1995 Hyogo-ken Nanbu earthquake in Kobe). Testing such a system would be straightforward using the LBCBs.