Damping-ratio measurements by the spectral-ratio method

Abstract

In this paper, bender elements are used as sensors to measure the damping ratio of soil by the spectral-ratio method. The results of numerical and physical experiments suggest that adequate measurement precision can be achieved by reducing the two types of inherent biases arising from (i) the near-field effect and (ii) the different transfer functions of the two receiver bender elements. The first bias can be avoided by setting sensors to r1/λ ≥ 2.0 and r1/r2 ≥ 2.0, where r1 and r2 are the distances between the source and the first and second receivers, respectively; and λ is the wavelength. The second bias can be minimized by modifying the original spectral-ratio method to accommodate the self-healing technique. The damping ratios, measured by this modified method, obtained from the experiment conducted in a tailor-made, true-triaxial apparatus are very similar to those obtained from resonant column tests under the same state of stress. © 2006 NRC Canada.