Vibration characteristics of rigid body placed on sand ground

Abstract

This study aims to investigate experimentally the vibration properties of rigid body placed on sand ground surface. The rigid body models with circular or rectangular base with variable mass, inertial moment and base sizes, were prepared, and the vibration behavior was observed in some series of free vibration tests and forced vibration tests. The observed behavior was analyzed and the vibration mode, vibration period and damping ratio were examined. It was found that the natural vibration period depends not only on the mechanical properties of rigid body and ground, but also on the magnitude of vibration amplitude. This suggested the notable effect of nonlinear strain dependent stiffness of ground material. A physical model with distributed spring–dashpot element was used to model the interactive mechanical behavior between rigid body and ground. The stiffness of the spring–dashpot element was evaluated through the modal analysis of the observed vibration behaviors. The effects of base shape, base size and base pressure on the stiffness of spring–dashpot element are discussed. The spring–dashpot model was verified with the behavior observed in forced vibration tests.