Assessment of the bender element sensors to measure seismic wave velocity of soils in the physical model

Abstract

Abstract In recent decades, the bender element (BE) test has been used to estimate the seismic wave velocity in the laboratory due to several advantages; simplicity, versatility, fastness, inexpensiveness, and non-destructive nature. However, even with the advanced usage of BE in the laboratory, there has been little effort to use the BE in the field. In this article, the BE was used on a physical model at a multilayer mixture soils system and using different methods, patterns, and wave path lengths to evaluate the BE technique in the simulated field. The results indicated that the cross-hole pattern was the most suitable pattern to implement the BE test on the simulated field. BE results were highly influenced by the boundary condition when the distance between the sensor and hard boundary is less than 0.3 of the wave path length. BE sensors were able to detect seismic wave velocity at a ratio of the wave path length to sensor length up to 200 times.