Font Size: a A A

Predicting Ground Vibrations from Driving Scaled Piles

Posted on:2016-11-25Degree:M.S.C.EType:Thesis
University:University of South AlabamaCandidate:Mohamed, Ashraf Salah-EldinFull Text:PDF
GTID:2472390017981647Subject:Civil engineering
Abstract/Summary:
Ground vibration associated with construction activity is one of the major concerns to engineers. Construction vibrations have a wide range of sources, one of them is vibrations from pile driving. Piles are used to support heavy structures. However, vibrations generated by pile driving may cause structural damage or disturbance to adjacent building occupants. So, it is of a great importance to accurately predict the level of vibrations from pile driving.;In this research, a scaled model made of an eight foot steel pile was driven to a depth of five feet in four different locations into a sandy soil to measure the vibrations during driving using three sensors. The vibration data were plotted versus depth, horizontal distance, and seismic distance. A graph was generated for each experiment to determine an attenuation factor K. Then, an equation was fit to predict the vibration versus seismic distance and the model was compared to the actual data.;The results indicate that the peak vibration occurred at the maximum total resistance for the soil. It was noticed that the vibration versus horizontal distance is not much different from the vibration versus the seismic distance, since the pile length was short compared to the horizontal distance where the sensors were placed.
Keywords/Search Tags:Vibrations, Pile, Driving, Horizontal distance, Seismic distance, Versus
Related items