A Large Biaxial Shear Box for Shaking Table Test on Saturated Sand

Abstract A large flexible laminar shear box was developed for the study of the behavior of saturated sand, especially liquefaction, and soil-structure interactions under two-dimensional earthquake shaking on a shaking table at the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE) in Taiwan. The shear box is composed of 15 layers of aluminum alloy inner and outer frames with a specimen size of 1880 by 1880 by 1520 mm. The soil at various depths inside the shear box can move, without torsion, according to the two-dimensional wave action induced by the shaking table. The sand specimen inside the shear box is prepared by the wet sedimentation method from a large pluviation device. Instruments are installed to measure the displacements, accelerations, and water pressures at various locations. Shaking table tests of the laminar shear box with and without a sand specimen were conducted. The test results showed that the performance of the biaxial laminar box and the instrumentation are satisfactory.