LIQUEFACTION ANALYSIS

Soil liquefaction is a phenomenon that occurs mostly in medium to fine-grained sands

wherein a mass of soil loses a large percentage of its shear resistance when subjected
to monotonic, cyclic or shock loading, and flows in a manner resembling a liquid. Much
of the damage on substructures and foundation during earthquake is attributed to this
phenomenon.

A loose saturated sand deposit, when subjected to vibration, tends to compact and
decrease in volume. If drainage is unable to occur, the pore water pressure increases.
If the pore water pressure in the sand deposit is allowed to build up by continuous
vibration, a condition will be reached at some time where the overburden pressure will
be equal to the pore water pressure. Based on the effective stress principle,
= '
where ' is the effective stress, is the total overburden pressure, and is the pore
water pressure. If is equal to , ' is zero. Under this condition, the sand does
not possess any shear strength, and it develops into a liquefied state.
Recent studies indicate, however, that effective stress ' need not equal to zero.
Liquefaction may also occur when the shear stresses acting on the soil is as low as
the residual shear strength. Loading that could induce liquefaction may also be cyclic,
shock loading or monotonic.

Liquefaction analysis considering SPT data was undertaken using LiquefyPro
software. This is based on the most recent methods recommended by the National
Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (NCEER) Workshop on Liquefaction and
Special Publication 117 (Guidelines in Analyzing and Mitigating Liquefaction in
California). The results are appended to this report.

The Factor of Safety (FS) for liquefaction potential is calculated as the ratio of the
Cyclic Resistance Ratio (CRR) to the Cyclic Stress Ratio (CSR).

=

The CRR liquefaction curves are developed for an earthquake magnitude of 7.5 and
is hereafter called CRR7.5. To take different magnitudes into account, the factor of
safety against liquefaction is multiplied with a magnitude scaling factor (MSF).

CRR7.5 is determined using the formula below (Blake, 1997):

7.5
=
+ +
2
+
3
1 + +
2
+
3
+
4


where:
x = N60,cf e = 0.0006136
a = 0.048 f = -0.0003285
b = -0.1248 g = -1.673x10
-5

c = -0.004721 h = 3.714x10
-6

d = 0.009578


Liquefaction Analysis
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Additional vertical overburden stress correction of CRR7.5 is suggested as:

=
7.5

where:
CRRV is corrected CRR7.5 (Magnitude=7.5)
K is the correction factor for initial shear stress and is set to 1
K is the correction factor for overburden stress


Figure 1. SPT Overburden correction for CRR7.5

In the chart, the effective confining pressure, 'm, is in tsf, which can be calculated as:

=
1 + 2
0
3
= 0.65
0



Ko is the coefficient of lateral earth pressure and by default set to 0.47. 'o and 'm are
the effective vertical overburden pressure in tsf, based on water table during the in-the
testing and fill does not affect them.

CRRV is based on earthquake with magnitude of 7.5. For a given earthquake with
different magnitude, CRRV need to be corrected. MSF is applied to the CRRV to obtain
CRRM, which is the magnitude-corrected cyclic stress ratio.

=



MSF is a magnitude-scaling factor given by:

=
10
2.24

2.56


On the other hand, CSR is calculated using the Seed & Idriss method (1971).

= 0.65

where:
amax = peak ground acceleration (in g)
o = total vertical stress
'o = effective vertical stress
rd = stress reduction factor, for soil flexibility
rd = 1.0 - 0.00765z (for z9.15m)
rd = 1.174 - 0.0267z (for 9.15m<z23m)
rd = 0.744 - 0.008z (for 23m<z30m)
rd = 0.5 (for z>30m)
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
K

Effective Confining Pressure (tsf)

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Liquefaction-induced settlements are based on the Ishihara and Yoshimine (1990).
The volumetric strain is charted against the factor of safety against liquefaction.



Figure 2.Post-liquefaction volumetric strain charts

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REFERENCES
NCEER-97-022 Proceedings of the NCEER Workshop on Evaluation of Liquefaction Resistance
of Soils (1997)
EERC 3003-06 Recent Advances in Soil Liquefaction Engineering: A Unified and Consistent
Framework (2003)
LiquefyPro Liquefaction and Settlement Analysis Software Manual Version 5 and Later (2010)


Liquefaction Analysis
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