Engineering Research Equipment Grant: Multiple Spark-Gap Camera

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Research equipment is provided for the configuration of a multiple spark-gap camera having framing rates of about one million frames per second. Its purchase will complement an existing blast-induced liquefaction laboratory and field site, where small-scale, blast- loading field tests in saturated soils are currently performed. Research conducted with the multiple spark-gap camera will permit laboratory tests to be conducted to study the elasto-dynamic behavior of unsaturated and saturated photoelastic models of soils. The soil particles are modeled as a series of round and randomly shaped discs of different sizes. This type of modeling provides basic information about wave velocities, contact stresses (normal and tangential) and contact duration between particles. This is all necessary information for a rigorous analysis of the complex dynamic wave-soil interaction where nonlinear stress-strain behavior is the norm, providing the potential for adaptation to experimental modeling of saturated soils. The multiple spark-gap camera is also expected to show the usefulness of a new concept, that of the subsurface wave gide, to isolate structures form surface vibrations. This is a concept which may provide an alternative to the use of trenches and other surface wave guides, which for the most part are impractical in real world applications.