Centrifugal shaking table tests on soil liquefaction and progress of LEAP projects

The centrifugal shaking table test is one of the most promising approaches to study soil liquefaction problems. On one hand, it can reproduce seismic response and reveal the ground failure mechanism induced by soil liquefaction, providing the scientific basis for developing the design methods for engineering practices; on the other hand, the test results can verify the relevant methods and constitutive models for soils used in numerical simulation. The principles of the centrifugal shaking table tests are briefly introduced and the research progress of centrifuge modeling for soil liquefaction problems are reviewed. Then the liquefaction experiments and analysis project (LEAP) and its verification and validation procedures are described. The new techniques developed to improve the repeatability of the centrifugal shaking table tests are introduced, including the shaking control of the shaking table, measurements of elastic wave velocities under high centrifuge acceleration, and particle image velocimetry (PIV)-based real-time monitoring of dynamic displacements. Finally, the research trends of the centrifugal shaking table tests in the field of soil liquefaction are discussed.