A new shaking table apparatus for large scale physical modelling of geotechnical systems

A new shaking table apparatus with a large laminar box has been set up in the laboratory EUROLAB-CERISI of the University of Messina. The apparatus consists of a shaking table connected to a servo-hydraulic actuator, a large shear stack container for the soil and an automated system for soil deposition. The actuator can excite the low friction shaking table, supporting a maximum load of about 32 t, by applying horizontal displacements in the range ± 255 mm and is capable of reproducing a wide set of real and artificial seismic motions. A large laminar shear box has been assembled and a hopper can be moved back and forth above the shear box allowing sand pluvial deposition. The velocity of the hopper, the width of its lower opening and the soil falling height can be adjusted to attain the desired relative density of the soil model.The paper provides details of this new experimental facility and describes the results of preliminary dynamic tests, aimed to characterize the performance of the whole equipment.