Shaking table test on dynamic behaviours of tropical residual soils in Malaysia

Studies on dynamic behaviours of tropical residual soils are still very limited in the current available literature. This paper mainly aims to investigate the dynamic properties (shear modulus and damping ratio) of two selected tropical residual soils (sandy silt and silty sand) in Malaysia under different overburden pressures. A series of shaking table tests were performed by applying 13 combinations of input shaking frequencies and lateral displacements. The measured acceleration data were subjected to baseline corrections and filtering processes. The results showed that the shaking table setup was capable of facilitating a considerably large strain level of deformation. The shear modulus increases proportionally with the confining pressure. Under the same confining pressure, shear modulus attenuates with the increase of strain amplitude. The shear modulus of sandy silt was consistently larger than that of silty sand. The damping ratios of the tested soils approximately range between 1% and 12%.