ABSTRACT
Vibrations propagating from railways can affect the living environment of individuals residing nearby and have a negative impact on structures and the equipment housed within. Centrifuge testing of ground-borne vibration (GBV) problems can provide valuable insights but involves various challenges, mainly associated with the very high frequencies and small amplitudes of the vibrations. This paper presents new developments for testing GBV problems on the Nottingham Centre for Geotechnics centrifuge. The propagation of vibrations generated from the vertical oscillation of a single pile is studied, which, for example, simulates a train running on a viaduct with piled foundations. The vertical oscillations of the pile are imposed by an Centre ectro-magnetic shaker with the dynamic load and acceleration of the pile being monitored. Sensitive piezoelectric accelerometers are used to monitor the transmission of vibrations through the soil body. The challenges faced during such tests include: low signal-to-noise ratios, physical vibrations from wind buffeting, ambient vibrations, and choice/control of appropriate input signal parameters. This paper illustrates how these issues were overcome to obtain high quality and high resolution signals such that the transmission of the imposed vibrations could be monitored.
