Liquefiable Interlayer Effects in a Liquefaction-Susceptible Site
Publication: Geo-Congress 2024
ABSTRACT
The liquefaction response of a site is attributed to a variety of factors including the configuration of the site’s stratigraphy and interaction of its layers and interlayers. However, the effects of configuration and interaction of soil units have been overlooked by the simplified liquefaction assessment methods that are currently widely used by practitioners for assessing liquefaction effects in a site, resulting in the overestimation of liquefaction manifestations in many cases. One of the cases that could highlight the role of a site’s configuration is the presence of a liquefiable interlayer in a profile mainly consisting of liquefaction-susceptible deposits. This study uses an advanced nonlinear dynamic analysis (NDA) procedure in a finite difference platform to simulate the response of a synthetic liquefaction-susceptible site with a silty liquefiable interlayer to seismic loading to investigate how the interlayer presence affects the system response. The effects of the liquefiable interlayer are evaluated using liquefaction triggering and manifestation parameters in the profile of the site and motion responses on the ground surface. This study also accounts for the role of interlayer thickness by developing NDAs with varying interlayer thicknesses. The soil properties used for the synthetic profile in this study are from a calibrated and validated NDA for the Wildlife Liquefaction Array (WLA) site thereby, presenting realistic materials. The results of this study indicated that contrary to the prediction of simplified methods, the presence of a liquefiable interlayer in the middle of the profile could considerably alleviate the potential shaking and liquefaction deformation damages on the surface.
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Information
Published In
Geo-Congress 2024
Pages: 250 - 258
History
Published online: Feb 22, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Analysis (by type)
- Continuum mechanics
- Dynamic analysis
- Dynamic loads
- Dynamics (solid mechanics)
- Engineering fundamentals
- Engineering mechanics
- Geomechanics
- Geotechnical engineering
- Geotechnical investigation
- Material mechanics
- Material properties
- Materials engineering
- Seismic loads
- Site investigation
- Soil analysis
- Soil dynamics
- Soil liquefaction
- Soil mechanics
- Soil properties
- Solid mechanics
- Structural dynamics
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