The response of model, flexible landing mats to cyclic loading

The problem studied is that of the deterioration of a flexible landing mat on soft soil under repeated cycles of vertical loading. Such cyclic loads can generate progressively increasing displacements until a yield hinge forms in the mat (which is, in effect a series of parallel planks) followed by rapidly increasing displacements per load cycle. The paper includes examples of the basic cyclic load behaviour of rigid test plates interpreted via a six parameter computer model which reproduces very accurately the non-linear plate-soil system response for the range of plates tested on a remoulded clay bed. This “spring” model has been incorporated into a further programme which analyses continuous flexible “mats” under both static and cyclic loads. The computer predictions were found to agree extremely well with the results from a series of experimental static and cyclic loading tests on model mats.