Design, Modelling and Building of Geotechnical Centrifuge from Nueva Granada Military University Design, Modelling and Building of Geotechnical Centrifuge from Nueva Granada Military University

Resumen

The deformation and stress in a civil construction can be simulated in small scale by geotechnical centrifuge equipment. To evaluate the geotechnical events the model has to be subjected to acceleration field between 150 - 300 Earth’s gravity. The Geotechnical group of Nueva Granada Military University designed a project whose the main objective is design, modelling and building a geotechnical centrifuge with a specification as effective spin radius, mass and volume of specimen over the swing, maximum acceleration, par and others. These aspect are described in this paper.

The first phase to concerns is the background of geotechnical centrifuge mechanical design and the scale laws, the second phase is the design and simulation in SolidWorks of stress and deformation in each assembly of the geotechnical centrifuge, which was 2.4 meters effective radium, 200 g of maximum acceleration and 500Kg weight over the swing. Finally, the last phase is the building and verification of the final design to take into account the maintenance and useful life of the new machine.