Discussion of “Performance of a transparent flexible shear beam container for geotechnical centrifuge modelling of dynamic problems by Ghayoomi, Dashti and McCartney”

Abstract

Owing to the increasing use of PIV (1) for optical displacement measurements in geotechnical centrifuge modelling, the use of transparent walls on model containers has been on the increase. In dynamic centrifuge modelling this process has been hampered by the trade-off between the ability to optically measure displacements in rigid transparent containers (2) and the more appropriate dynamic boundary conditions provided by flexible containers (3). The transparent flexible shear beam container described by Ghayoomi et al. (4) thus appears to provide a solution to this trade-off, enabling experiments visualising mechanisms of failure such as those carried out at 1g by Knappett et al. (5) to be replicated at more appropriate stress levels in the centrifuge.