PEER has published Report No. 2025/03: "Ground Improvement-Based Protection of Transportation Infrastructure: Validation of Performance Based Engineering via Centrifuge Shake Table Testing." It was authored by Jeffrey T. Newgard, Tara C. Hutchinson, John S. McCartney, Department of Structural Engineering at the University of California San Diego.
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Abstract
This report presents a centrifuge modeling investigation into the performance of rocking footings supported by various ground improvement strategies with the aim of controlling their performance during earthquake shaking. The rocking footings investigated in this study are modeled after the shallow foundations supporting a two-span highway bridge at the crossing of Hwy 108 and Sanguinetti Road in Sonora, California, which also served as the archetype bridge in previous centrifuge studies on rocking footings. These earlier studies confirmed that under-designed foundations re-center reliably while dissipating energy. The present study focuses on the strategic application of ground improvement to preserve these beneficial traits of rocking footings while limiting settlement and residual rotation.