A SOFT LAYER TO CONTROL SOIL ARCHING ABOVE A BURIED STRUCTURE

The load on a buried structure's flat roof, under static conditions, i s influenced by a soil-structure interaction phenomenon, known as arch ing. The possibility of controlling this mechanism by application of a soft layer in the soil above the roof is investigated and described h erein. New definitions, that better describe various aspects of the ph enomenon, are proposed, and used in a quantitative analysis of the pro blem. The effects of the soft layer are discussed and it is shown that there is an optimal length of the soft layer that yields minimal load ing on the buried roof.