Monitoring In-situ Horizontal Stress in Soil Using Shear Waves

We have developed a laboratory facility where very small change in stress in soft soil can be accurately implemented. The effect of such small stress change on seismic velocity has been measured. Our observation suggests that change in shear-wave velocity can be used to monitor change in in-situ horizontal stress, even if the magnitude of stress change is small. A properly constrained stress-porosity model can successfully predict the observation in most cases.