ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an assessment of the state-of-the-art in the use of centrifuge model testing for study of problems in geotechnical earthquake engineering. It begins with a brief survey of developments in the area of equipment and instrumentation. The possible importance of change in soil properties from prototype to model strain rates has been discussed by Craig who reported increases in strength with increasing strain-rate in centrifugal tests with cyclic loadings. Modest effects may have been present in ground motion simulation tests upon clay dams. B. L. Kutter describes tests involving homogeneous model clay embankments, corresponding to prototype embankments about 7m high, having a static safety factor of about 1.5. The primary emphasis in these tests was upon permanent displacements, which ranged up to 0.2m prototype scale. Deformation was observed to occur over a relatively wide shear band, in contrast to the distinct shear surfaces assumed in conventional sliding block analyses.
