jgeot.18.p.209.pdf (2.37 MB)
Acoustic emission behaviour of dense sands
Interpretation of acoustic emission (AE) generated by particulate materials has to date been qualitative. The objective of this study was to move the discipline towards quantitative interpretation of AE to: enable early warning of serviceability and ultimate limit state failures in the field, and enhance the instrumentation of element and physical model tests in the laboratory. Results from a programme of drained triaxial tests on dense sands show that: AE generation is proportional to the imposed stress level, imposed strain rate, fabric coordination number and boundary work done; there are two types of AE response at the transition from contractive to dilative behaviour, which was governed by the mean particle size; and AE activity in particulate materials is negligible until the current stress conditions (compression and/or shear) exceed the maximum that has been experienced in the past. Relationships have been quantified between AE and boundary work (i.e. AE generated per Joule) for a unit volume of sand under isotropic compression and shear, and between AE and shear strain rate. An example interpretation framework demonstrates how AE measurements could be used to identify the transition from contractive to dilative behaviour, mobilisation of peak shear strength and quantify accelerating deformation behaviour that typically accompanies shear zone development.
Funding
Alister Smith gratefully acknowledges the support of an EPSRC Fellowship (Listening to Infrastructure, EP/P012493/1).
History
School
- Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering
Published in
GéotechniqueVolume
69Issue
12Pages
1107 - 1122Citation
SMITH, A. and DIXON, N., 2019. Acoustic emission behaviour of dense sands. Geotechnique, 69 (12), pp.1107-1122.Publisher
ICE PublishingVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Acceptance date
2019-01-04Publication date
2019-02-05Copyright date
2019ISSN
0016-8505eISSN
1751-7656Publisher version
Language
- en