Noriaki Sako

DEVELOPMENT OF A GEOMATERIAL WITH VIBRATION DAMPING CAPABILITY AGAINST EARTHQUAKE MOTION USING INDUSTRIAL WASTES AND CONSTRUCTION BY-PRODUCTS

The authors proposed a composite foundation capable of mitigating the responses of structure against an earthquake motion built on soft grounds. We attempted to develop a new geomaterial that has a mitigating effects and suitable characteristics for use as a plant-base that is one of the constituents of the proposed composite foundation. Major advantages of this new geomaterial are as follows. (a) Vibration damping plant-base blocks can be settled at the surface of the ground around the building. These blocks contribute not only to seismic vibration damping but also to urban greening. Cost-effectiveness of this method is promising because it works daily without regard to earthquakes. (b) The ground improvement considers active reuse of industrial wastes and construction by-products as well as greening, which may reduce the carbon dioxide emission and urban heat island phenomenon. In this paper, the mechanical properties of the new geomaterial evaluated by cyclic triaxial test were mainly discussed. From the test results, wood-chip with recycled fine component was deemed an excellent mixture for the geomaterial with vibration damping capability. In addition, recycled fine component was hardly reused in its present state. Moreover, it was found that the control of curing days and compacted layer numbers (i.e. bulk density) was very important.