Particle image velocimetry study of displacement field in granular continua under axisymmetric conditions

In this paper we study the characteristics of displacement field during installation of a model pile in granular media using particle image velocimetry (PIV). A steel pile of 12.7 mm width was driven to a depth of 120 mm in silica sand of 0.6 mm mean particle size in axisymmetric condition. The chamber for the sand was fabricated out of transparent acrylic glass to allow high resolution imaging from front side under diffused illumination condition. Instron material testing system was utilized to drive the pile into the soil with controlled speed while a custom-built imaging system recorded the images for offline processing with PIV algorithms. Before application of the technique to the model pile, PIV parameters were also optimized through a simple translation test. Results for displacement as well as strain field obtained using finite element post-processing are appended as evidence of impact of this study.