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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Built Environ.
Sec. Earthquake Engineering
Volume 10 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fbuil.2024.1524030
This article is part of the Research Topic NHERI 2015-2025: A Decade of Discovery in Natural Hazards Engineering View all articles

NHERI@UTexas Experimental Facility with Large-Scale Mobile Shakers for Field Studies: A Decade of Discovery in Natural Hazards Engineering

Provisionally accepted
Kenneth H Stokoe Kenneth H Stokoe 1*Brady R Cox Brady R Cox 2*Patricia M Clayton Patricia M Clayton 3*Robert B Gilbert Robert B Gilbert 1*Sungmoon Hwang Sungmoon Hwang 1*
  • 1 The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, United States
  • 2 Utah State University, Logan, Utah, United States
  • 3 Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) experimental facility at the University of Texas (NHERI@UTexas) is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). NHERI@UTexas contributes unique, large-scale, literally one-of-a-kind, mobile dynamic shakers and associated instrumentation to investigate and innovate seismic, cyclic, and static in-situ testing methods. The capability to conduct tests on actual infrastructures and geotechnical systems under real field conditions, often impossible to accurately simulate in the laboratory, has revolutionized the ability to validate and calibrate numerical models and methodologies using full-scale experimental data. The field shakers and support equipment described in this paper enable researchers to gain new insights and drive innovations in advancing resilient and sustainable solutions for natural hazards researchproblems. Examples of completed, on-going and future projects in four key areas of investigation that NHERI@UTexas supported are presented. These examples include: (1) performing more accurate 2D/3D subsurface geotechnical and seismic imaging at greater depths, (2) characterizing liquefaction resistance and nonlinear dynamic behavior of soils in situ, (3) developing in-situ methods to perform nondestructive soil-foundation-structure interaction (SFSI) studies, and (4) rapid investigation of geotechnical parameters at high-profile and natural hazard events.

    Keywords: NHERI@UTexas, large mobile shakers, in situ seismic testing, subsurface imaging, liquefaction testing, soil-structure interaction

    Received: 06 Nov 2024; Accepted: 04 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Stokoe, Cox, Clayton, Gilbert and Hwang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Kenneth H Stokoe, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, United States
    Brady R Cox, Utah State University, Logan, 84322, Utah, United States
    Patricia M Clayton, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, 27109, North Carolina, United States
    Robert B Gilbert, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, United States
    Sungmoon Hwang, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.