ASSESSMENT OF LIQUEFACTION POTENTIAL - DETERMINISTIC AND PROBABILISTIC APPROACH

Abstract

Seismic soil liquefaction continues to be a challenging problem, and attracts considerable attention from researchers all around the world. The term liquefaction has been used to define various different aspects of shear strength reduction, such as flow failure or cyclic softening. The studies presented herein are directed towards the development of improved SPT-based correlations for both probabilistic and deterministic evaluation of potential for “triggering” or initiation of seismically-induced soil liquefaction. This studies presents new correlations for assessment of the likelihood of initiation (or “triggering”) of soil liquefaction and provide greatly reduced overall uncertainty and variance. Key elements in the development of these new correlations are:(1) accumulation of a significant database of field performance case histories (2) use of improved knowledge and understanding of factors affecting interpretation of standard penetration test data.(3) determining whether the soil is susceptible to liquefaction or not, at whereas depths up to 35m below ground level. (4) use of reliability method and Bayesian approach to determine the probability of liquefaction.