Numerical modeling of EPS seismic buffer shaking table tests

The paper describes the details and verification of a FLAC numerical code that was used to simulate the results of an experimental program of reduced-scale wall models constructed with a seismic geofoam buffer inclusion and loaded using a large shaking table. Five physical tests constructed with expanded polystyrene (EPS) geofoam materials having different modulus values and a control case with no geofoam inclusion were carried out. The paper shows that the numerical model was able to capture the trend in earth forces with increasing base acceleration for all six models and in most cases quantitative dynamic load–time response of the numerical simulations was in good agreement with measured values.