Validation of Measured 2D Deformations

Abstract

The modeling capacity of transparent soils was studied by comparing 2D soil deformations under a model footing on silica gel and on sand. General agreement between deformation in silica gel and sand was found in almost every aspect. Non-intrusive measurements of deformation inside a soil model were also realized by cross-correlating speckle images generated by interaction of laser light and transparent synthetic soils. These results presented in this chapter validate the premise that synthetic transparent soils are a suitable surrogate for natural soils in model studies.