The PoliTO–UniRoma1 database of cyclic and dynamic laboratory tests: assessment of empirical predictive models

The soil nonlinear hysteretic behaviour is usually described, in the moderate strain range, through the shear modulus reduction and material damping ratio (MRD) curves. In common practice, in absence of specific laboratory tests, the curves are estimated by employing empirical regression models. Suc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Bulletin of earthquake engineering 2023-03, Vol.21 (5), p.2569-2601
Main Authors: Ciancimino, Andrea, Cosentini, Renato Maria, Foti, Sebastiano, Lanzo, Giuseppe, Pagliaroli, Alessandro, Pallara, Oronzo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Civil Engineering
Damping
Damping ratio
Datasets
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Empirical analysis
Empirical models
Environmental Engineering/Biotechnology
Fine-grained soils
Geophysics/Geodesy
Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences
Hydrogeology
Laboratories
Laboratory tests
Modelling
Original Article
Performance assessment
Physical properties
Prediction models
Regression analysis
Regression models
Shear modulus
Soil
Soil dynamics
Soils
Statistical analysis
Statistical methods
Structural Geology
Tests
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Summary:The soil nonlinear hysteretic behaviour is usually described, in the moderate strain range, through the shear modulus reduction and material damping ratio (MRD) curves. In common practice, in absence of specific laboratory tests, the curves are estimated by employing empirical regression models. Such predictive models, typically calibrated on large experimental datasets, correlate the soil response to its physical properties. This research fits within this context, presenting a comprehensive database of cyclic and dynamic laboratory tests conducted on natural Italian soils. The database, publicly available as supplementary data of the paper, contains the results of the tests conducted by the geotechnical laboratories of the Politecnico di Torino (Turin, Italy) and the Sapienza Università di Roma (Rome, Italy) over the past 30 years. The experimental data are employed to assess the performance of some widely used empirical models in predicting the MRD curves of natural uncemented fine-grained soils, emphasizing the importance of using an independent dataset for conducting a reliable statistical analysis. The results show that the use of many soil parameters as proxies for predicting the soil response does not necessarily lead to an improvement in the performance of the model. Therefore, according to Occam’s razor principle, simple models are to be preferred.
ISSN:1570-761X
1573-1456
DOI:10.1007/s10518-022-01573-y