Model Tests with a Transparent Soil to Observe Behavior of Buried Structures due to Neighboring Constructions

Abstract

Construction works in urban areas must satisfy not only the safety of a newly constructed structure itself but also the safety of existing structures adjacent to the new one. Visual observation might be a first step to understand the interaction of a newly constructed structure and existing structures adjacent to new one, if a soil would be visible. Recently, Ezzein and Bathurst (2011) reinvented a transparent soil for laboratory modelling. This technique is fundamental and versatile for geotechnical model testing. The principle of a transparent soil is to match the refractive indices of transparent grains and pore-liquid. There have been many combinations of grain-materials and pore-liquids proposed (Ganiyu et al., 2016). However, though the principle is simple and straight-forward, there seems to be a plenty of know-hows which should be mastered and established to conduct laboratory model tests with transparent soils. In this article, the authors would like to present such procedural know-hows and the application of them for some demonstrative experiments.