Arching effect in a granular soil subjected to monotonic or cyclic loading: Kinematic analysis

An experimental approach to analyze the arching effect in granular soils is to perform trap-door-like tests. A granular mattress is lying in a rigid box of plane section 1 m × 0.4 m, with a central trap-door of width 0.2 m, instrumented with a load cell and a displacement transducer. The mechanisms are first studied under monotonic and quasi-static conditions, by lowering slowly the trap door. For the study under cyclic load, a foam element which mimics a compressive soil is placed over the trap door and cycles of uniform surface loading and unloading are applied. For all tests, the displacement field of front grains of the mattress is measured and analyzed by the use of the Digital Image Correlation technique. The DIC analysis indicates that full arching does not occur in the soil mass and shows a slight increase of the vertical displacements during the cycles. © 2014 Taylor & Francis Group.