A LARGE SCALE RESONANT COLUMN TESTING SYSTEM FOR

EVALUATING DYNAMIC PROPERTIES OF GRAVELLY FILL MATERIALS

OF DAMS
Nam-Ryong Kim1
Dong-Hoon Shin2
Ik-Soo Ha3
Min-Seub Kim4
ABSTRACT
This article introduces a large scale resonant column testing apparatus to evaluate smallstrain shear modulus, damping ratio, and the modulus reduction curve corresponding to
shear strain level of gravelly soils. These key parameters are important for the seismic
analysis of geotechnical systems such as earth embankment dams and the main purpose
of this new testing system is focusing on the characterization of gravelly fill materials for
dam construction. Detailed configurations of the fixed-free Stokoe type resonant column
testing apparatus which can test 200mm in diameter specimen are introduced, and the
system was calibrated. A series of tests for gravelly fill material have been conducted on
large scale specimens 200mm in diameter and 400mm in height. The result and
applicability of this testing apparatus to evaluate dynamic properties of gravelly fill
materials is addressed. Finally, the applicability of this new system is discussed.
INTRODUCTION
Recently geomaterials with large coarse grains are frequently used as fill materials of
large geosystems such as embankment dams, and demands for coarse materials continue
to increase in mega construction projects. For the design of this type of infrastructure, it
is important to evaluate and understand the material characteristics to verify and predict
the safety and the performance of the systems. However, evaluation of strength and/or
deformation characteristics of the coarse material is not easy in the lab because it requires
large scale testing equipment. For example, fill materials for concrete faced rock-fill
dams sometimes contain massive rubbles and it is almost impossible to directly evaluate
the material properties as granular material or continuum because a small sample with
relatively large rubbles cannot be considered as representing whole granular system.
While most of design criteria for geotechnical structures depend on the strength
parameters, deformation characteristics or stiffness is more important in the performance
evaluation or prediction of deformation under service conditions. Especially in the
seismic analysis of geosystems, the key soil parameters are shear modulus and damping
ratio. For example, small-strain shear modulus (or shear wave velocity), modulus
1

K-water Institute, 462-1 Jeonmin, Yuseong, Daejeon, Korea, +82-42-870-7632, namryong@kwater.or.kr

K-water Institute, 462-1 Jeonmin, Yuseong, Daejeon, Korea, +82-42-870-7600, shindh@kwater.or.kr
3
K-water Institute, 462-1 Jeonmin, Yuseong, Daejeon, Korea, +82-42-870-7603, geodoc@kwater.or.kr
4
K-water Institute, 462-1 Jeonmin, Yuseong, Daejeon, Korea, +82-42-870-7613,
mskim3400@kwater.or.kr
2

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reduction curve and damping characteristics are the key parameters for site response
analysis or multi-dimensional seismic analysis of geotechnical systems. It is same for the
dams constructed with coarse gravels. Therefore, it is strongly recommended to evaluate
the dynamic deformation characteristics of coarse or gravelly materials reliably for
seismic analysis of earth structures constructed with these kinds of materials.
For this purpose, several large scale resonant column testing systems have been
developed to evaluate deformation characteristics of gravelly soil (Woods, 19991; Prange,
1981), but only a few systems are capable to use specimens larger than 150mm in
diameter (Richter & Huber, 2003; Menq, 2003; Hardin & Kalinski, 2005). Resonant
column testing is the preferred method to evaluate dynamic properties of soils, since it
directly measures shear modulus and damping ratio (Clayton et al., 2009). However, the
diameter of specimen to be tested is normally less than 100mm. The main purpose of
large scale resonant column testing systems is to evaluate dynamic deformation
characteristics of fill materials for dams as well as ballast materials for railway
construction. These materials generally contain relatively large gravel particles or even
crushed rubbles. Therefore, the size of testing system has to be as large as possible to
reliably evaluate the dynamic deformation characteristics of these materials. Alternative
methods to estimate the strength parameters of original coarse materials using small
samples by adjusting grain size distributions have been introduced and adopted (Hou et
al., 2004), however the effect of this adjustment on stiffness parameters is not clear. To
investigate and extrapolate the stiffness measurement result from reduced particle size
sample to the original sample, samples with various particle size conditions must be
compared in the same testing environment. The specimens of these samples must also be
considered as homogeneous continuum. Therefore, the large scale resonant column
testing system was developed not only to investigate the effect of largest particle size but
also to directly evaluate dynamic deformation characteristics of gravelly materials.
In this article, development of the K-water large scale resonant column (LSRC) testing
equipment is introduced. The main feature of the system is applicability to coarse
materials with maximum grain sizes over 30mm. Gravelly materials often used as fill
materials for geotechnical systems such as dams can be tested in the new system. The
dynamic characteristics of the system have been investigated and the applicability of the
system on gravelly material has been examined and verified this study.
LARGE SCALE RESONANT COLUMN TESTING APPARATUS IN K-WATER
General Design and Specifications
The K-water large scale resonant column (LSRC) testing apparatus has been designed as
a Stokoe type system and its boundary conditions are fixed at the bottom and free at the
top with additional mass which is consist of top cap and driving plate . The standard for
resonant column test (ASTM D4015) recommends that the largest grain size must be
smaller than 1/6 of the diameter of the testing specimen and the height of the specimen
must be about 2 to 3 times of the diameter when the specimen is tested under high
confining pressure. The basic configuration of the testing system introduced here fits to a

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200mm in diameter and 400mm in height specimen. Therefore, the test can be conducted
for maximum 33mm grain size samples. Figure 1 illustrates the design of the LSRC
testing apparatus developed in at K-water. The parts were designed with cautious analysis,
such as deformation induced by the reaction force during applying torsional excitation, to
ensure precise operation.
Proximitor

Proximitor support

Proximitor target
Coil-magnet system
Driving plate
Accelerometer

Driving system leveling part

Top cap
Specimen
Driving system support
Bottom pedestal

Base plate

Figure 1. Design of the K-water LSRC testing apparatus.

The system was designed to satisfy the requirements for the general resonant column test
method. The main features of the testing system are listed as follows:
- Gravelly soil sample with maximum grain size over 30mm can be tested in an
appropriate manner.
- Solid cylinder type specimen with 200mm in diameter and 400mm in height is used
with standard configurations.
- The maximum dimensions of testing specimen can be enlarged up to 300mm in
diameter and 600mm in height.
- Maximum 2MPa pneumatic confining pressure can be applied to the testing
specimen.
- Coil-magnet driving system provides torsional cyclic load at the top of the
specimen and it is controlled by sinusoidal current regulated by the amplifier.
- The maximum torsional load generated by coil-magnet system is up to 500Nm,
which can characterize deformation modulus of 800MPa shear modulus sample.
- Cyclic torsional shear test can be conducted in the same testing configuration by
directly measuring shear strain using a pair of proximitors at the top of the sample.
Driving and Measurement System

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The basic principles for operation of the LSRC testing system are to apply cyclic
excitation load to the driving plate, and to measure the dynamic response of the specimen.
The configuration of operation and measurement system of the K-water LSRC testing
system is illustrated in Figure 2. Once sinusoidal current is provided to 4 pairs of coils in
the driving system, the interaction between magnetic field generated by the current
through the coils and the magnets attached to the driving plate acts as a loading
mechanism hence it provides cyclic torque at the top of the specimen. By sweeping the
excitation frequency, frequency response can be acquired and the resonant column test
software seeks the resonant frequency to find the shear modulus or shear wave velocity.

Figure 2. Control and measurement system configuration of LSRC testing system.

Figure 3. LSRC testing system.

For accurate control of the driving system, an arbitrary waveform generator (Agilent
33220A) is employed in the system and it generates precise sinusoidal excitation signal
according to the commands from the control software. Since the testing system focuses
on applications on gravelly materials under high confining pressure and uses a large
specimen, the strain level corresponding to 10Vp excitation can be smaller than
0.0001%, which is generally smaller than elastic threshold strain of gravelly material.
Therefore, a power amplifier which can provide precisely regulated electric current to the
coil system is implemented and it is confirmed that the response of gravelly soil specimen

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Innovative Dam and Levee Design and Construction

under maximum excitation shows shear strain level up to 0.01% at maximum loading
level.
The response of the specimen caused by the cyclic torsional excitation is measured using
an accelerometer (PCB 353B15) attached at the top of the driving plate. The signal from
the accelerometer is collected by the A/D board (NI USB-6251) and the frequency
response curve is plotted by measurement software. The shear strain level is determined
from the acceleration measurement and the shear modulus is calculated from the
resonance frequency. The software also has a capability to evaluate damping ratio by
both half-power bandwidth and free vibration decay methods. Once a single step of the
test is completed, we can increase the output voltage from the waveform generator to
increase the strain level hence it is possible to obtain the modulus reduction and damping
curves at specific confining stress levels.
SYSTEM VERIFICATIONS
To measure dynamic deformation properties of geomaterials using resonant column
testing system, it is important to evaluate dynamic characteristics of the testing system.
The dynamic characteristic of the system is a key factor in calculating the shear modulus
from the governing equation. The shear modulus of the testing specimen is calculated by
the equation derived by elastic theory and it is expressed as Equation (1)

l
l
I
= n tan n (1)
I 0 VS
VS
where I is the mass polar moment of inertia of the specimen, I0 is the mass polar moment
of inertia of the system attached at the top of the specimen, n is the natural frequency of
the specimen, l is the height of the specimen, and VS is the shear wave velocity of the
testing material. While the mass polar moment of inertia I of the specimen can be easily
calculated, that is not in case for I0, which is the key factor to solve the Equation (1) to
calculate VS. Therefore, the I0 of testing system is usually evaluated by experimental
method. The system characteristics of the K-water LSRC equipment have been evaluated
using metal specimens, and the performance and accuracy were verified by using
urethane specimens.
Calibrations using Metal Specimens
To evaluate I0 of driving system, total three metal specimens were prepared and LSRC
tests were conducted. The main part of the metal specimen is a single aluminum rod and
large rigid metal disk can be attached at the top of the specimen. The torsional stiffness of
the system can be solely fixed by the rod while the polar moment of inertia of the system
can be changed by substituting the metal flange disks. For the specimen installed in the
LSRC testing system, the response characteristic of the single degree-of-freedom (SDOF)
system can be determined by following equation

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n =

K
I

(2)

where n is the natural frequency of the system, K is the torsional stiffness of the
specimen, or the rod, and I is the polar moment of inertia of the specimen. If the
specimen is tested in the LSRC testing system, Equation (2) can be rewritten as
I0 + I =

K
n '2

(3)

Figure 4. LSRC testing system with metal specimen for calibration.

Therefore I0 can be calculated by solving simultaneous equations from two tests with
different flanges since I of specimens can be easily calculated for each case and K does
not change. Figure 4 shows the installation of the metal specimen in the LSRC testing
system employed to measure I0 and the circular flange at the top can be replaced by larger
sizes. Table 1 shows I values for each specimen with different flanges calculated and the
natural frequencies fr measured from LSRC testing system. With the results in Table 1, I0
was calculated from three combinations of the results as listed in Table 2. The difference
in each I0 from these 3 cases is around 2% and the average I0 is similar to the result from
numerical estimation. Therefore, the I0 value of the testing system could be successfully
evaluated and this parameter can be used to evaluate the deformation characteristics of
soil specimen.
Table 1. Mass polar moment of inertia of each specimen and corresponding resonant
frequencies from LSRC test.
I (kgmm2)

Specimen ID
#1 10,683.74
#2 65.303.82
#3 132,316.39

fn (Hz)
37.7
27.7
22.1

Table 2. Determination of mass polar moment of inertia of the driving system from
LSRC test of 3 metal specimens.
Specimens
#1 - #2

546

K (Nm)
3,595.6

I0 (kgmm2)
53,398

I0 (average)
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#2 - #3
#3 - #1

3,555.0
3,573.2

52,057
52,997

System Verification using Urethane Specimens

The system compliance of testing equipment for evaluating mechanical properties of
materials must be evaluated to verify its applicability (Kwon, 1999). To confirm this
issue, three sets of urethane specimens with different rigidity were tested in the K-water
LSRC testing system. Urethane specimen for system verification is known that the
deformation modulus doesnt change with strain or confining stress level. Additionally,
there is no effect of loading history on the deformation characteristics, so it is often used
for verification of material testing equipment (Stokoe et al., 1990, Kwon, 1999). In this
study, each urethane specimen with three different hardness and/or deformation moduli
was cured in two different sizes to fit to normal resonant column (D=50mm, H=100mm)
and the K-water LSRC (D=200mm, H=400mm) testing systems. Since the specimens in
two different dimensions are made of same material, the test result can be directly
compared and the accuracy of new LSRC testing system can be verified.
Figure 5 shows the frequency response functions evaluated from the LSRC test of the
hardest urethane specimen. A series of tests have been conducted increasing the
excitation level to increase shear strain and the shear strain level ranged from 0.0001 to
0.01%. In the result, the resonance frequency doesnt change because stiffness of
urethane specimen has no strain dependency as expected, while general geomaterials
shows strain dependent stiffness characteristics. The experimental results from the LSRC
test for three different urethane specimens are summarized in Table 3. In case of U60, it
was difficult to evaluate the modulus and damping in broad strain range because the
material was too soft to measure the response precisely.
0.35

fr

ACC. amplitude (Vrms)

0.30
0.25
0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.00
50

60

70

80

90

100

Frequency (Hz)

Figure 5. Frequency response of a urethane specimen U95 from LSRC test.

Specimen
U60
U80

Table 3. LSRC test result of urethane specimen.

Strain range (%)
fr (Hz)
G (MPa)
VS (m/s)
0.01 0.03
8.3
0.7
24.2
0.002 0.05
32.2
11.9
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D (%)
5.28
2.72
547

U95

0.0001 0.01

72.5

52.9

223.1

8.08

Figure 6. Comparison of RC test results for large and normal scale urethane specimens.
For these three urethane materials with different hardness, results from both RC and
LSRC tests are plotted together and compared in Figure 6. The shear moduli evaluated by
two different systems are similar in all cases but LSRC test results tend to be slightly
smaller than RC result except for U60 case which is too soft to be evaluated precisely.
Even though the difference from these two testing systems is about 5%, the modulus and
damping measured from the LSRC system is still in reasonable range. So the applicability
and the system compliance could be verified and it can evaluate the deformation
characteristics of the tested material precisely.
MEASUREMENT OF DYNAMIC DEFORMATION CHARACTERISTICS OF
GRAVELLY MATERIAL
The performance and applicability of this system for evaluating deformation
characteristics of gravelly materials have to be examined. The testing procedure and the
results from a series of test are discussed in this section.
Sample Preparations
The first testing material to investigate the applicability of the K-water LSRC testing
system has been chosen considering the maximum grain size which can be tested by
preparing 200mm diameter specimen. The testing material is from the fill material of a
newly constructed concrete faced rockfill dam (CFRD) in Korea, and is made by crushing
sound granite. Originally the maximum grain size of rock fill material for the dam is
about 1,500mm however it can never be tested by general lab testing equipment even by
the new system. Therefore the material was prepared by parallel shifting of the grain size
distribution to satisfy the maximum grain size requirement of the K-water LSRC testing
system. The particle size distributions of the original and selected material for the test are
shown in Figure 7. The maximum grain size of the tested material is 26mm and D50 is
2.3mm.

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Figure 7. Grain size distribution of the fill material; original distribution and distribution
of tested material prepared by parallel shifting method
Figure 8 shows the sample and the preparation process for LSRC test. The grains from
dried original sample were separated by sieve and then they were mixed all together to
satisfy the parallel shifted distribution according to the maximum grain size 26mm. The
sample was poured into a latex membrane in the steel mold. The sample was compacted
by in five layers and the unit weight of the sample is 1.95kg/cm2. The sample prepared in
the mold was moved and installed to the baseplate, and the driving system was installed
at the top of the specimen.

(a) (b)

(c) (d)
Figure 8. Sample preparations for LSRC test; (a) testing material, (b) mold for sample
preparation, (c) installation of the specimen, and (d) testing setup

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Test Results
After the specimen and the pressure chamber is secured in the testing system, the LSRC
test is conducted with increasing confining pressure. The small strain shear modulus Gmax
and the nonlinear deformation characteristics are highly dependent of effective stress
level so the effect of confining stress needs to be verified. The test has been conducted
from 25kPa confining stress and every test set has been conducted by increasing the
confining stress twice up to 400kPa. During the test, it was difficult to determine the
frequency response of the specimen in small strain level when specimen was tested under
low confining pressure. The frequency response was too noisy to determine the modulus
or damping ratio in this case and it is considered that the signal to noise ratio from the
acceleration signal is too low. On the other hand, the largest shear strain level for the
400kPa case was limited to only 0.01% even though the excitation input was applied as
maximum capacity of the driving system. Therefore, it will be necessary to improve the
driving capacity to evaluate the nonlinear deformation characteristics of dense materials.
Figure 9 and 10 show the result from LSRC test; shear modulus reduction and damping
characteristics corresponding to shear stress level. The maximum shear modulus Gmax at
small strain is generally expressed as a function of void ratio and effective stress (Hardin,
1978):
Gmax = A F (e) Pa1- n ( ') n = A '( ') n

(4)

and A is determined as 8.17 and n is determined as 0.595 from the experimental result.
The elastic threshold strain, which means the shear strain level that shear modulus starts
decreasing and the nonlinearity appears, for gravel is generally around 0.0001% (Seed et
al., 1986) and these from the experimental result are between 0.0001 to 0.001%.
Damping ratio starts increasing from near the elastic threshold strain and it generally
decreases with confining stress. This trend could be observed in the experimental result.
350

Shear modulus (MPa)

300
250
25kPa
200

50kPa
100kPa

150

200kPa
400kPa

100
50
0
0.00001

0.0001

0.001

0.01

0.1

Shear strain (%)

Figure 9. Modulus reduction curves of gravelly material at each confining stress level.

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Innovative Dam and Levee Design and Construction

9
8

25kPa
50kPa

Damping ratio (%)

7
6
5

100kPa
200kPa
400kPa

4
3
2
1
0
0.00001

0.0001

0.001

0.01

0.1

Shear strain (%)

Figure 10. Damping ratio of gravelly material at each confining stress level measured by
free vibration decay method
During the LSRC test for the gravelly material, it was difficult to precisely determine the
frequency response and the damping ratio at low confining pressure. This problem is
considered as the effect of not only low signal-to-noise ratio due to small response but
also the mechanical noise caused by frictional behavior between the coarse grains. This
irregularity can also make it difficult to measure reliable damping ratio in small strain
range.
The modulus reduction curve such as Figure 9 is often normalized by Gmax value to
investigate the nonlinear deformation characteristics or to find deformation model
parameters. Figure 11 shows the normalized modulus reduction curve derived from
Figure 9. The elastic threshold strain of cohesionless soil, including gravel, generally
tends to increase with confining pressure. However the result from this experiment shows
an opposite trend. The reason for this phenomenon has to be investigated further.
However, this trend could come from the effect of fine content in the soil sample. The
tested material contains more than 30% of fine grain material which passes #200 sieve
and this fine grained material can weaken the strong frictional behavior of coarse grains.
Therefore, the modulus reduction characteristics in low confining pressure can be similar
with sandy soil. On the other hand, the interactions and stresses through the chains of
coarse grains can increase with the higher confining pressure so the deformation
characteristics can be more similar to pure gravels. This hypothesis may explain the
reason that the modulus reduction curve tends to decrease with confining pressure, but
further investigation is necessary for clearer interpretation.

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551

Normalized shear modulus (G/Gmax)

1.2

1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

25kPa
50kPa
100kPa
200kPa
400kPa

0.2

0.0
0.00001

0.0001

0.001

0.01

0.1

Shear strain (%)

Figure 11. Normalized modulus reduction curves of the tested gravelly material.

CONCLUSIONS
Dynamic deformation characteristics such as modulus reduction and damping
characteristics of fill materials are the key parameters for seismic design and performance
evaluation of dams. The K-water large scale resonant column testing system has been
developed for this purpose and the application and its characteristics have been
introduced in this article. The LSRC testing system was calibrated, and the applicability
and system compliance were verified. The shear modulus reduction and damping curves
of gravelly material in practical shear strain range could be evaluated using the testing
system, and the applicability of the newly developed system could be confirmed.
However, the deformation characteristics of the gravelly material have to be investigated
in detail, especially when the sample is prepared by parallel shifting of grain size
distribution. Furthermore, wide range of research on the effect of the soil classification
parameters such as maximum grain size, fine content and grain size distribution on the
deformation characteristic is required to better understand the deformation behavior of
gravelly fill materials for dams.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study was supported by a grant from the Construction Technology Innovation
Program (09-CTIP-F045) funded by the Minister of Land, Transport, and Maritime
Affairs (MLTM) of the South Korean government. This financial assistance is gratefully
acknowledged. Special thanks are to the reviewers for their revisions and helpful
suggestions.
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