Centrifuge Modeling of Prefabricated Vertical Drains for Liquefaction Remediation
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 138, Issue 3
Abstract
Drainage methods for liquefaction remediation have been in use since the 1970s and have traditionally included stone columns, gravel drains, and more recently prefabricated vertical drains. This paper presents the results from a dynamic centrifuge test designed to evaluate the performance of a liquefiable site treated with prefabricated vertical drains. The centrifuge model consisted of gently sloping, untreated and treated liquefiable soil deposits overlain by a clay crust. The model was subjected to multiple shaking events that included both recorded earthquake acceleration-time histories and sinusoidal input motions. Comparisons of deformations and excess pore water pressures in the untreated and treated areas showed that drains were effective in expediting the dissipation of excess pore water pressures and reducing deformations. However, depending on the characteristics of the input ground motion, the peak excess pore pressures in the treated area were not always substantially smaller than in the untreated area. Nevertheless, the deformations in the treated area were consistently smaller, which illustrates that the peak excess pore pressure ratio may not be a good indicator of overall performance. On the basis of the data from the centrifuge test, a better indicator of overall performance may be the time spent at elevated excess pore water pressures, which related better to the magnitude of the resulting deformations.
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Acknowledgments
Financial support for this work was provided by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. NSFCMS-0530478 and NSFCMS-0402490. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
The authors would like to thank Dr. Daniel Wilson, Chad Justice, Ray Gerhard, Lars Pedersen, Nick Sinikas, and Peter Rojas from the UC Davis Center for Geotechnical Modeling and Carolyn Conlee of Drexel University for their assistance with the centrifuge testing. We would also like to thank Antonio Marinucci for his work on developing the centrifuge model designs for SSK01 and RNK01.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 138 • Issue 3 • March 2012
Pages: 262 - 271
Copyright
© 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 29, 2010
Accepted: Jul 21, 2011
Published online: Feb 15, 2012
Published in print: Mar 1, 2012
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