Abstract
The field of infrastructure rehabilitation and development requires a better understanding of soil-structure interactions. The interaction behaviour between soil and structures has mostly been investigated through theoretical and/or numerical analysis. This paper presents a series of experiments performed on an intermediate-scale physical model made of an instrumented silo. In contrast to most reported laboratory tests, both the horizontal and vertical stresses were monitored during backfilling operations realised by wild pouring. Drop tests were performed to investigate the density variation with respect to the drop (or falling) height of the soil, which were introduced in the pressure interpretation. The results showed that horizontal stress in the direction parallel to the pouring plane is larger than that perpendicular to the pouring plane. Apparently, the vertical stress is well-described using the arching solution by considering the backfill in an active state, whereas the horizontal stress perpendicular to the pouring plane is better described with the arching solution by considering the backfill in an at-rest state. An estimate of the earth pressure coefficients based on the measured vertical and horizontal stresses indicates, however, that the backfill was closer to an at-rest state in the direction perpendicular to the pouring plane, whereas in the direction parallel to the pouring plane, it was in a state between at-rest and passive. These results indicate that it is important to measure both the horizontal and vertical stresses to obtain a whole picture of the state of the backfill. The results showed also that the horizontal stresses can be larger than those calculated by the overburden solution, probably due to dynamic loading by drop mass during the filling operation and stress lock.
Highlights
Interaction between soil or backfill and structures is a commonly observed phenomenon in geotechnical engineering [1, 2]
The results indicate that the response of a backfill realised by wild pouring is significantly different from that of a backfill obtained by air or water pluviation
The backfill by wild pouring may have anisotropic behaviour in the horizontal plane due to the impact of dynamic loading by drop mass, resulting in horizontal stress that is higher in the direction parallel to the pouring plane than in the direction perpendicular to the pouring plane
Summary
Interaction between soil or backfill and structures is a commonly observed phenomenon in geotechnical engineering [1, 2]. When a frictional particulate material, such as cereals, grains, cement, or chemical powder, is placed in a confined opening with stiffer walls, it tends to yield and settle under its own weight, whereas the abutment walls tend to hold it in place by shearing stresses along the interfaces between the particulate material and the abutment walls. Part of the load due to the particulate material weight is transferred from the particulate material to the surrounding walls. The stresses within the particulate material become smaller than those calculated with the overburden solution. This phenomenon is known as the “arching effect” [3, 4]. The broad application of the arching theory in the construction industry is mostly due to the pioneering work of Marston [5], who made use of Janssen’s arching theory and introduced an analytical solution for evaluating the load on
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