Experimental investigation on response of biocemented coral sand pile composite foundation under seismic waves

Abstract

The biocemented coral sand pile composite foundation represents an innovative foundation improvement technology, utilizing Microbially Induced Carbonate Precipitation (MICP) to consolidate a specific volume of coral sand within the foundation into piles with defined strength, thereby enabling them to collaboratively bear external loads with the surrounding unconsolidated coral sand. In this study, a series of shaking table model tests were conducted to explore the dynamic response of the biocemented coral sand pile composite foundation under varying seismic wave types and peak accelerations. The surface macroscopic phenomena, excess pore water pressure ratio, acceleration response, and vertical settlement were measured and analysed in detail. Test results show that seismic wave types play a decisive role in the macroscopic surface phenomena and the response of the excess pore water pressure ratio. The cumulative settlement of the upper structure under the action of Taft waves was about 1.5 times that of El Centro waves and Kobe waves. The most pronounced liquefaction phenomena were recorded under the Taft wave, followed by the El Centro wave, and subsequently the Kobe wave. An observed positive correlation was established between the liquefaction phenomenon and the Aristotelian intensity of the seismic waves. However, variations in seismic wave types exerted minimal influence on the acceleration amplification factor of the coral sand foundation. Analysis of the acceleration amplification factor revealed a triphasic pattern—initially increasing, subsequently decreasing, and finally increasing again—as burial depth increased, in relation to the peak value of the input acceleration. This study confirms that the biocemented coral sand pile composite foundation can effectively enhance the liquefaction resistance of coral sand foundations.

Keywords

Coral sand / Biocemented coral sand pile / Composite foundation / Liquefaction / Shaking table test

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Xiangwei Fang: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Validation, Funding acquisition. Chao Chen: Investigation. Ganggang Zhou: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Investigation, Data curation. Zhixiong Chen: Resources, Methodology. Chunyan Wang: Validation, Funding acquisition. Luqi Wang: Supervision, Funding acquisition.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare the following financial interests or personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Chao Chen is currently employed by China Coal Technology and Engineering Chongqing Design and Research Institute (Group) Co., Ltd., and Ganggang Zhou is currently employed by Daqing Oilfield Design Institute Co., Ltd. The other authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51978103, No. 52308340, No. 52408355), the Postdoctoral Fellowship Program of CPSF (No. BX20240450), and Chongqing Talent Innovation and Entrepreneurship Demonstration Team Project (No. cstc2024ycjh-bgzxm0012). The authors gratefully acknowledge this financial support.

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