Experimental investigation of dynamic porewater pressure response induced by single shallow-buried detonations in saturated sand

Abstract

Studies on the dynamic porewater pressure response induced by single shallow-buried detonations in saturated sand are limited. A series of single shallow-buried detonation tests was conducted in a large pit filled with saturated sand. The objective of the tests was to study the influence of charge weight and burial depth on porewater pressure generation. Comparisons of excess porewater pressures obtained from the tests and previous liquefaction studies on fully contained explosions are presented. For a given cube-root scaled distance, the excess porewater pressure ratio (PPR) induced by a shallow-buried detonation is much lower than that of a fully contained explosion. The burial depth of the explosive, which is not considered in previous empirical formulas, is a significant parameter in addition to the scaled distance. A modified empirical model as a function of the scaled burial depth and other conventional factors is proposed and shown to provide valuable information for predicting the PPR induced by single shallow-buried explosions in saturated sand.