Experimental Study for Wave-Induced Oscillatory Pore Pressures in a Sandy Seabed

Abstract

In this paper, an experimental study for wave-induced pore pressures in marine sediments was reported. In the experiment, a one-dimensional facility was set up with a vertical cylinder and a 1.8 m thick sandy deposit and 0.2 m thick water above the deposit. Unlike the previous experiments [1], additional static water pressures were added on the harmonic dynamic wave pressure and more pore pressure gauges were buried in the deposit, which allowed us to simulate the case with larger water depth and better describe the distribution of pore pressure trend. A series of experiments with 3000 cycles in each test were conducted under numerous different wave and soil conditions, which allowed us to examine the influence of wave and soil parameters on the wave-induced pore pressures as well as liquefaction. The experimental results show the significant influence of liquefaction on sandy seabed in shallow water. Furthermore, some new experimental phenomenon was observed. The depth of sandy deposit was usually considered to be unchanged in theoretical calculation, while the depth of which was indeed changed periodic with wave loading, which was observed and recorded in the experiments.