Undrained Shear Strength of Liquefied Sands for Stability Analysis
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical Engineering
Volume 118, Issue 11
Abstract
The postliquefaction shear strength of sands, called the undrained critical strength or (critical), is evaluated in terms of the critical strength ratio, This allows postliquefaction stability analyses to incorporate the variation of (critical) with effective vertical stress instead of using a single value as proposed elsewhere. Comparison of back‐calculated critical strength ratios and the cyclic stress ratios triggering liquefaction suggests that drainage occurs in most cases during the postliquefaction flow of liquefied sands. To evaluate the stability of an existing slope that is predicted to liquefy during a dynamic event, the original slope configuration and the constant volume (critical) must be used instead of the back‐calculated partially drained (critical) values. The proposed procedure for estimating the constant volume (critical), using the results of field and/or laboratory tests, shows that the critical strength ratio is approximately one‐half the yield strength ratio at the triggering of liquefaction for an earthquake magnitude of 7.5. It has been shown that the yield strength ratio at the triggering of liquefaction for a magnitude of 7.5 can be estimated by 0.011 times the equivalent clean sand blow count. Therefore, the critical strength ratio is 0.0055 times the equivalent clean sand blow count.
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Published In
Journal of Geotechnical Engineering
Volume 118 • Issue 11 • November 1992
Pages: 1727 - 1747
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Copyright © 1992 ASCE.
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Published online: Nov 1, 1992
Published in print: Nov 1992
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