Behavior of dry medium and loose sand-foundation system acted upon by impact loads

The experimental study of the behavior of dry medium and loose sandy soil under the action of a single impulsive load is carried out. Different falling masses from different heights were conducted using the falling weight deflectometer (FWD) to provide the single pulse energy. The responses of soils were evaluated at different locations (vertically below the impact plate and horizontally away from it). These responses include; displacements, velocities, and accelerations that are developed due to the impact acting at top and different depth ratios within the soil using the falling weight deflectometer (FWD) and accelerometers (ARH-500A Waterproof, and Low capacity Acceleration Transducer) that are embedded in the soil and then recorded using the multi-recorder TMR-200. The behavior of medium and loose sandy soil was evaluated with different parameters, these are; footing embedment, depth ratios (D/B), diameter of the impact plate (B), and the applied energy. It was found that increasing footing embedment depth results in: amplitude of the force-time history increases by about 10-30%. due to increase in the degree of confinement with the increasing in the embedment, the displacement response of the soil will decrease by about 25-35% for loose sand, 35-40% for medium sand due to increase in the overburden pressure when the embedment depth increased. For surface foundation, the foundation is free to oscillate in vertical, horizontal and rocking modes. But, when embedding a footing, the surrounding soil restricts oscillation due to confinement which leads to increasing the natural frequency, moreover, soil density increases with depth because of compaction, that is, tendency to behave as a solid medium.