Influence of Aging on Liquefaction Potential: Preliminary Results

This paper describes laboratory-based liquefaction testing of aged soil deposits to address the need for quantifying the influence of aging on liquefaction potential. The in situ aging of liquefiable soil deposits has been qualitatively shown to result in an increase in liquefaction resistance. For example, Pleistocene age sandy soils will generally have a higher resistance to seismic induced liquefaction than similar sandy soils of Holocene age. However, a quantitative measure of this liquefaction resistance increase for use in liquefaction analysis is still unrealized. Cyclic simple shear testing is used in this study to systematically quantify the influence of aging on liquefaction potential. The influence of aging is then measured as the difference between liquefaction triggering of an aged sample versus a similar reconstituted sample. Uncertainly in the field and lab testing results is explicitly defined in a probabilistic manner so that the age-based correction factor can be used in performance-based analysis. Preliminary results from this ongoing research project are presented.