Laboratory measurement

Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK

Measurement of anisotropic shear wave propagation by bender
elements in overconsolidated clay

K. Piriyakul & W. Haegeman

Laboratory of Soil mechanics, Ghent University

ABSTRACT: This paper describes the measurement techniques to determine the anisotropic shear wave veloc-
ity of clays using bender elements in triaxial testing. This shear wave velocity has a direct relation to a shear
modulus G, an important parameter in geotechnical engineering. A series of laboratory bender element tests are
performed on an undisturbed Boom clay specimen applying different input wave shapes. The standard bender
element technique sends a single sinusoidal wave from a transmitting bender element to a receiving bender ele-
ment passing through the soil specimen. The shear wave velocity can be calculated by the distance and the travel
time between these bender elements. A phase shift technique is a new proposed technique sending continuously
cycled sinusoidal waves. The shear wave velocity can be calculated from the number of full wavelengths and
the frequency. Currently, a multi-directional bender element technique is applied for measuring the shear wave
velocity in both vertical and horizontal directions.

1 INTRODUCTION as described by Fioravante & Capoferri (2001). There-

Soils have anisotropy imposed through the processes
by which they are formed. Therefore over the past three
decades a number of researches in the understanding
of anisotropic soil behavior have been published for
example Pennington (1999), Fioravante & Capoferri
(2001) and Lings & Greening (2001). One of the
important parameters for geotechnical and earthquake
engineering is the initial shear modulus, G0 . This G0
can be calculated out of the shear wave velocity in the
bender element testing. Measurement of shear wave
velocity in soil testing by means of bender elements
are used in many research studies Dyvik & Madshus
(1985), Viggiani & Atkinson (1995), Brignoli et al.
(1996), Jovicic et al. (1996), Lohani et al. (1999),
Fioravante & Capoferri (2001). At the Laboratory of
Soil Mechanics in Ghent University, bender elements
are applied in an anisotropic triaxial cell type Bishop &
Wesley (1975), using bender elements designs simi-
lar to those described in detail by Lings & Greening
(2001) offering possibility to apply anisotropic stress
conditions on a soil specimen and measure shear wave
velocities in vertical direction. The shear wave is gen-
erated and received by transducers placed at opposite
ends of a soil specimen. The shear velocity is calcu-
lated from the distance between the two transducers
and the time required by the wave to cover this dis-
tance. Currently within the framework of this research,
a new technique is adapted allowing shear waves to
propagate through a specimen in horizontal direction
fore, multi-directional shear wave velocities can be
measured in the triaxial test.
There are two interpretation techniques in order
to verify shear wave velocities. The first method,
described by Brignoli et al. (1996), calculates the shear
wave velocity from the distance between the two trans-
ducers and the time required by the shear wave to cover
this distance as shown in equation 1:
where Vs is the shear wave velocity, L is the tip to tip
distance between two transducers and t is the required
time to cover this distance.
Equation 2 presents the required time and the detail
of evaluating this time can be found in section 3.
where tt is the total travel time and tc is the offset time.
Second method is developed by Blewett et al.
(1999). In this method a continuous sinusoidal wave is
applied to a transmitter transducer at a low frequency.
An output from the receiver transducer is displayed at
the same time. The frequency of the input is gradually
increased until the output signal comes into phase. If
the initial frequency is low enough, it will create one
full wavelength between both transducers. The input
frequency is again increased until the desired number

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Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
of full wavelengths is obtained. The shear wave veloc- Vent valve to admosphere
ity can be calculated by equation 3:
Perspex cylinder

Local strain sensors

Force transducer
Vylastic Sleeve Back pressure and drainage
where N is the number of full wavelengths and f is the Soil sample External strain transducer
frequency.
After obtaining the shear wave velocity, it is possible Cell pressure
to calculate the shear modulus using the relationship Cross head for
displacement measurement
from elastic continuum mechanics in equation 4: Axial stress or deformation

where G0 is the initial shear modulus and is the mass Figure 1. Diagrammatic layout of an anisotropic triaxial
density of the material. apparatus.

Personal Computer
2 EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

2.1 Boom clay From soundcard

This research is carried out on overconsolidated Boom

clay. An undisturbed Boom clay specimen at 5.00 m
depth is sampled into a cylinder tube with 50 mm in
diameter and 110 mm in height. Boom clay has a spe-
cific gravity of, Gs , 2.69, a water content of 29.4%
and a mass density, , of 2003 kg/m3 . The specimen
is subjected to anisotropic stresses under K0 condition
with a final vertical effective stress of 83.6 kPa and
horizontal effective stress of 48.5 kPa.
2.2 Anisotropic triaxial apparatus
An anisotropic triaxial apparatus designed by Bishop
and Wesley (1975) is used to performed the K0 consol-
idation test as shown in Figure 1. A LabVIEW software
program is developed to control this cell, the specimen
will be consolidated to the required vertical effective
stress as same as in-situ stress condition without lateral
deformation. This software program can operate three
digital pressure-volume controllers that measure and
control the volume change and pore water pressure,
the radial stress and the axial stress or strain.
Receiving signal Amplifier
Bender elements
Analyzer
Triaxial cell
Sending signal
Figure 2. Triaxial apparatus with bender elements setup.
the soil specimen, distortion of the receiver transducer
produces another voltage pulse. The receiver trans-
ducer is directly connected to the analyzer to compare
the difference in time between the transmitter and the
receiver. The shear wave velocity measurements are
usually performed with frequencies ranging between 2
to 10 kHz, at strains estimated to be less than 0.0001%.
In most cases, signals are averaged 20 times in order
to get a clear signal.

2.3.1 Vertical bender elements

2.3 Bender element testing
Figure 2 shows the triaxial apparatus with bender
elements setup. A personal computer generates a sig-
nal through a sound card with 5V peak to peak as
suggested by Mohsin & Airey (2003). This signal is
amplified to 20V peak to peak. A Hewlett-Packard
dynamic signal analyzer model 3562A is used to mea-
sure the arrival time between a transmitted signal and
a received signal. A voltage pulse is applied to the
transmitter transducer, this causes it to produce a shear
wave. When the shear wave reaches the other end of
For the shear wave propagation in the vertical direc-
tion (Svh -wave), bender elements are installed in the
anisotropic triaxial apparatus. Details of this bender
elements are described by Lings & Greening (2001).
Figure 3 shows the bender elements mounted in top
cap and bottom pedestal. These bender elements will
penetrate 4.9 mm into a soil sample.
2.3.2 Horizontal bender elements
Currently a new technique, as described by
Fioravante & Capoferri (2001), is introduced in the

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Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
 Figure 4. Horizontal bender elements.

Shv
Figure 3. Bender elements for the vertical shear wave
measurement.

laboratory of Soil Mechanics to allow the shear

wave propagation through the specimen in horizon-
tal direction. Therefore the shear wave propagating
horizontally with soil particles vibrating in horizontal
direction (Shh -wave) and the shear wave propagating
horizontally with soil particles vibrating in vertical
direction (Shv -wave) can be measured. In measuring
horizontal shear waves, bender elements are fitted
along the cylindrical soil specimen. The new horizon-
tal bender elements are coupled at one end on a metal
plate that acts as interface to transmit the shear wave
laterally through the soil specimen by friction. They
are called frictional bender elements as seen in Fig-
ure 4. In the specimen membrane a rectangular slot
of 2 5 mm is cut, the metal plate is installed in con-
tact with the soil inside the membrane and glued to the
internal surface of the membrane so there is no leakage
through the membrane. The dimensions of the metal
plate are 20 mm in height, 10 mm in width and 0.1 mm
in thickness. The introduction of the metal plates on
the membrane causes negligible effect for any spec-
imen preparation technique. Finally, one end of the
horizontal bender element is glued directly to the exter-
nal surface of the metal plate through the hole using
rapid glue, while the end is free. The horizontal ben-
der elements are mounted from the specimen bottom
at 1/3 and 2/3 of the specimen height for Shv - and Shh -
waves respectively. So multi-directional shear wave
measurements Svh , Shh and Shv -waves can be measured
as shown in Figure 5.
Shh
Svh
Figure 5. Mounting of multi-directional bender elements.
3 CALIBRATION OF BENDER ELEMENTS
Before performing tests, it is essential to calibrate the
complete system to be sure that there is no time delay
in the measurement due to the electronics, ceramics
and coating material. The first calibration method,
the offset time, tc , is determined by attaching a pair
of bender elements directly to each other and mea-
sure the time interval between the transmitter bender
and the receiver bender element signals. In a second
method, the triaxial apparatus is setup without a spec-
imen inside. The bender elements are placed at the
suitable height and distance by clamping. No shear
wave arrival should be recorded when the triaxial cell
is empty and when the triaxial cell is filled with water.
Figure 6a reports the delay of Svh -wave by attaching

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Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
(a)
Figure 7. Influence of near-field effect on the Svh -wave of
Boom clay with different frequencies.

the transmitter bender element directly to the receiver

bender element. The arrival time is delayed 3.9 s at
a frequency of 6 kHz. In a similar way the arrival time
of Shh -wave is delayed 15.62 s at frequency 8 kHz
and Shv -wave is delayed 23.44 s at frequency 6 kHz
as shown in Figure 6b and 6c respectively.

4 NEAR FIELD EFFECT

At the low frequencies, the first deflection of the mea-

sured signal does not correspond to the arrival of the
shear wave but the arrival of a compression wave
so-called near-field component. It should be noted that
this near-field effect may mask the arrival of the shear
(b) wave when the distance between the transmitter and
the receiver is in the range of 4 wavelengths. Fig-
ure 7 shows that the near-field effect decays fast when
the number of wavelengths between the transmitter
and the receiver is increased as described by Brignoli
et al. (1996). In this research, the optimum frequen-
cies providing good receiver signals are between 2 to
10 kHz. At lower frequencies, the received signal is too
much disturbed by the near-field effect and the res-
onant frequency of the piezoelectric bender element
(610 Hz). Frequencies lower than 1 kHz are therefore
not applied. At higher frequencies, the received sig-
nal is weak and difficult to measure due to the high
damping in the soil material.

5 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

5.1 Interpretation of a single period sinusoidal

(c) waveform
Figure 6. Calibration of bender elements (a) Svh (b) Shh and Figure 8 shows the total travel time of Svh -wave in a
(c) Shv -waves. Boom clay sample tt is 644.00 s. From equation 2,

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Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
(a)

Figure 9. Example of measurement of continuous sinu-

soidal shear wave (Svh -wave) travel time in Boom clay.

Table 1. Vsvh of continuous sinusoidal waveform.

Number of wavelengths Frequency (Hz) Vsvh (m/s)

1 1313 126.5
2 2838 136.7
3 4400 141.4
4 5837 140.4
5 7600 146.2

(b) the required time t of 640.10 s can be calculated by

subtracting the offset time tc of 3.90 s. After K0 con-
solidation, the sample has 100.80 mm in height and
49.84 mm in diameter. Since the vertical pair of ben-
der elements penetrates 4.90 mm into the sample the
tip to tip distance is 95.90 mm and Vsvh = 149.8 m/s
can be calculated. In a similar way for the Shh -wave,
t is 269.38 s and Vshh is 185.03 m/s. Also for the
Shv -wave, t is 327 s and Vshv is 152.16 m/s.

5.2 Interpretation of continuous sinusoidal

(c)
Figure 8. Example of measurements of a single period sinu-
soidal wave travel time in Boom clay (a) Svh (b) Shh and
(c) Shv -waves.
waveform
Figure 9 shows the in phase cross-correlation of the
input and the output signal. A frequency of 7600 Hz
is measured. Using equation 3, a shear velocity of
146.18 m/s is calculated since the number of wave-
lengths is 5 and the tip to tip distance is 95.90 mm.
Table 1 presents the calculation of Vsvh by contin-
uously sine wave excitation in a Boom clay sample.
The results show that Vs increases when the number of
wavelengths increases and the target value is reached
after a number of wavelengths higher than 4 due to

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Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
the near-field effect as described by Brignoli (1996).
There are some difficulties to determine the frequency
that comes into phase for horizontal bender elements
testing.
6 CONCLUSIONS
In K0 stress condition, Vsvh , Vshh and Vshv can
be measured using multi-directional bender elements
technique. From the results, the phase shift method
can evaluate the shear wave velocity as the standard
method. However, there are some difficulties to inter-
pret the shear wave velocity using the phase shift
method in horizontal directions. This is due to the near-
field effect and the reflection of propagating waves in
the short distance. Therefore in horizontal bender ele-
ments, it is better to perform the stand method with
high frequencies.
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