A Liquefaction Evaluation Procedure Based on Shear Wave Velocity by Ronald D, Andius! and Kenneth H. Stokoe, IP ABSTRACT This paper auilines a procedure for evaluating iquefaction resistance of soils using shear velocity measurements. The procedure follows al format of the Seed-ldriss simplified 0 SPT blow count the gen provedure based It was developed following suggestions from industry wesearchers, and. practitioners, and using case history data from 26 earthquakes and over 70 meastirement sites in sorls ranging from sand t sandy gravel with cobbles to profiles including silty. clay The procedure correctly oredicts moderate to high liquefaction potential for over 95 % of the liquefaction case histories. layers A case study is provided tw illustrate the application of the proposed procedure, KEYWORDS: Building « ngineering. sit resting: shear wave velocity chnology: earthquake oil liquefaction, [INTRODUCTION Evaluating the liquefaction resistance of soils is an important step in the engineering design of structures and the retrofit of existing in earthquake-prone regions. The evaluation procedure widely used in the United States and throughout much of the work! is, new structu termed the simplified procedure This simplified procedure was originally developed by Seed and iris 1971) low counts from the Standard Penetration Test (SPT) correlated with parameter representing the seismic loadins on the soil, called the cyclic stress ratio. using U Research Civi! Fnpineer. National Institute of Standards \! Technoliigy, 100 Bureau Drive Stop 8611 Gaithersburg, Maryland. 20899-861 Professit. Department of Civil Engineering Be19.227, fens TRI The Unjversi'v af Texas at Austin, Austin, Wind and Seismic Effects. (UJNR). Joint Meeting, 31°. Proceedings. 469 Small-strain shear wave velocity. Vs. measure- ments provide a promising alternative, or supplement, to the penetration-based approach. The use of Vas an index of liquefaction resistanee is soundly based, liquefaction resistance are similarly influenced by void ratio, state of stress, stiess history, aud geologic age. Furthermore, the strong theoretical basis underlying stress wave propagation offers the opportunity for additional advances in the approach ince both Vy and During the past two decades, several simplified procedures for evaluating liquefaction resistance based on V’; have been proposed (Dobry et al. 1981: Dobry et al. 1982: Seed et al.. 1983: Bierschwale and Stokoe, 1984; de Alba et al, JORd: Hynes, 1088; Stokoe et al, 1088: Vokimatsu and Uchida, 1990, okimatsu et al., 1901; Robertson et al., 1992; Kayen et al. 1992: Andrus, 1994; Lodge, 1994; Rashidian, 1995: Kayabali, 1996; Andrus and Stokoe. 1997, Rollins et al, 1998; and Andrus et al., 1999). Some of these procedures follow the general format of the Seed-Idriss simplified procedure. where V, 1s corrected to a reterence overburden stress and correlated with the eyclic stress ratio, Nearly all were developed with limited or no field performance data. ‘This paper outlines the procedure proposed by Andrus and Stokoe (1997), and updated by Andrus et al. (1999) using an expanded database, The expanded database compiled by Andrus et al, (1990) consists of field performance data from 26 earthquakes and V7, measurements at U.S. /Japan Natural Resources Development Program Technical Memorandum of PHAT 3653. May 11-14, 1999, Tsukuba, Japan, 71-78 pp, 1999.over 70 sites. Much of the new data are from the 1995 Hyogoken-Nanbu (Kobe). Japan earthquake (moment magnitude, M, = 6.9), 2. LIQUEFACTION RESISTANCE FROM HF: 2.1 Cycli¢ Stress Ratio (CSR) The cyclic stress ratio. t,/0%, at a particular depth in a level soil deposit can be expressed as (Seed and Idriss. 1971): oes (#2) a x hot Where tye 1s the average equivalent uniform cyclic shear stress caused by the earthquake and is assumed (0 be 0.65 of the maximum induced Ste35. day 8 the peak horizontal ground surface acceleration, ¢ is the acceleration of gravity. ¢, is the initial effective vertical (overburden) stress at the depth in question, ©, is the total overburden stress at the same depth, and ry is a wr stress reduction coefficient 10 adjust for flexibility ofthe soil profile sh 2.2 Stress-Corrected Shear Wave Velocity Following the traditional procedures for correcting SPT blow count to account for overburden stress, one can correct I's to reference overburden stress by (Sykora, 1987 Robertson et al, 1992): wen (SP where }., is the overburden stress-corrected shear wave velocity, P, is a reference stress. 100 kPa or about atmospheric pressure, and’, is. initial effective overburden stress in kPa. In using Fy (@), it i imptictly aeenmedt that the initial effective horizontal stress. oy, fuctor of the effective overburden stress. ‘Ihe factor. generally referred to as, ‘wsumed 40 be approximately 0.5. at sites Also. it ned that 1, Q constant where liguefaction has occurred. applying Bq. (2). itis impli m0 is measured with both the directions of particle motion and wave propagation polarized along principal stress directions and one of these directions is vertical (Stokoe et al.. 1985), 2.3 Cyclic Resistance Ratio (RR) The value of CSR separating liquefaction and non-liquefaction occurrences for a given Vx, oF corrected blow count, is called the cyclic resistance ratio, Andrus and Stokoe (1997) proposed following relationship between CRR and Vy: the where Vir is the limiting upper value of Fy for liquefaction occurrence, a and h are curve fitting parameters, and MSF 1s the magnitude sealing factor. ‘The first term of Eq. (3) is based on a modified relationship between I's, and CSR for constant average eyelie shear strain suggested by K. Dobry (personal communication to R. D. Andrus, 1996: Andrus and Stokoe, 1997). The second term isa hyperbola with a small value at low values of My. and a very large value as Voy approaches V$y The magnitude scaling factor. which accounts for the effect of earthquake magnitude on CRR, can be expressed by: opu( May MSF (4) ) where 71 is an exponent. The lower bound for the range of magnitude scaling factors recommended by the 1996 National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (NCEER) Workshop on Evaluation of Liquefaction Resistance of Soils (Youd et al.. 1997) is defined by Eq. (4) with m = -2.56 (ldriss, personal communication to T. L. Youd, 1995),Figure 1 presents the case history data for ‘magnitude 5.9 fo 8.3 earthquakes adjusted using Eq, (4) with n = -2.56. Also presented in Fig. | are the proposed CRR-Vy, curves, The curves are defined by Eq. (3) with a = 0.022. b = 2.8. V5, = 200 mss for fines content (FC) > 3 Vij = 208 mvs for FO = 20% and mis for FCS 5%, ‘The case histories, and (RR: 1's, curves, are limited to relatively level grcund sites with average depths less than 10m, uncemented soils of Holocene age, ground water table depths between 0S m and 6 m, ané rneasurenvents nad below the water lable Of the 0 liquefaetion case histories Fig. 1. only two incorrectly lie in the no: Iuguetaction region. The two liquetaction cases that Fie in the no-liquefaction region are for sites at Treasure Island, California. These sites are located along the perimeter of the island where liquefaction was marginal during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake (M, = 7.0) 2.4 Factor of Safety A common way to quantify the hazard for liquefaction is in terms of a factor of safety, FS. The #8 agains: liquefaction can be defined by CSR tion is predicted to oceur when FS < faction is predicted not to occur when FS > 1. The avceptable value of FS for a particular site will depend on several factors including the acceptable level of risk for the project, the extent and accuracy of seismic measurements, the availability. of other information, and the conservatism in Jetermining the design earthqnake and the expected value OF dg, site ile 3. CASL STUDY Figure 2 presents the liquefaction evaluation for a crosslisle test atray at the Treasure Island Pre Station and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, Values of Vy and CSR shows in am Figs, 2(a) and 2(d), respectively, were calculated assuming soil densities of 1.76 Mum’ above the water table and 1.92 Mgim' below the water table, Based on dy, of 0.16 g and 0.11 g recorded in two horizontal directions at the Fire station during the 1989 earthquake (Brady and Shakal, 1994), 2 geometric mean value of 0.13 was used to caleulate CSR. Values of FS shown in Fig, 2(e) are less than | for the depths of 4 m to 9m, Between the depths of 4'm and 7'm, the sand contains non- plastic fines and is considered liquefiable Between the depths of 7m and 9 m, the soil exhibits plastic characteristics andl may be non- liquefiable by the so-called Chinese criteria According to the Chinese criteria, liquefiable clayey soils have clay (particles. smaller than 5 jim) > 15 9 limits 2 35 % or moisture contents < 90 % of the liquid limit (Seed and ldriss, 1982). Thus, the layer most likely to liquefy, or the critical layer, lies between the depths of 4 m and 7m. contents liquid Although no sand boils or ground cracks oceurred at the site during the 1989 earthquake, there is a sudden drop in the fire station strong ground motion recordings al about 15 seconds and small motion afterwards (Idriss, 1990). This behavior is behavior observed in recordings at other seismograph stations located ‘on soft-sail sites iw dhe San Francisco Bay area, De Alba ct al. (1994) attributed this behavior to liquefaction of an underlying sand. It is possible that the 4 m thick layer capping the site, predicted not to liquefy in Figs. 2(d) and 24 prevented the formation of sand boils at the ground surface (Ishihara, 1985), unlike 4, CONCLUSIONS Outlined in this paper is a procedure for evaluating liquefaction resistance through Vs measurements. ‘The proposed procedure follows, the general format af the Seedeldriss simplified procedure based on SPT blow count Liquefaction criteria based on x have been developed with case history data from soils ranging from sand to sandy gravel with cobble:to profiles including silty clay layers. Caution should be exercised “when applying the procedure to sites where conditions are different from the database, Additional well-documented case histories with all types of soil that have andi have not liquefied during earthquakes are needed, particularly from denser soils (Vs; > 200 m/s) shaken by stronger ground motions (4... 0.4 to further validate the procedur: 5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, “The authors gratefully acknowledge she review of this work by the participants of the 1996 NCEEK and the 1998 Multidistiplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCLER. formally NCEER) Workshops cnr Evaluation of Liquefaction Resistance of Soils. We thank Riley Chung for his support and encouragement. and Nicholas Carino and Alan Raueh for their Also. special thanks to Sisumu lai Osamu Matsuo. Susuma Yasu Kanatani, Yukihisa Tanaka. Kobi Mamoro Tokimatsu, K. Ishihara, and Takeji Kokusho for the information on dap. tuslies graciously shared with the first author wese Tiquefacti 6. 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Cir. for Earthquake Engrg. Res.. Buffalo, NY. pp. 1-40,‘ala Bagod on. Miyg= 581083. aujstod by dividing CSA by (My/7.5}256 “iolosenesage sos Average vives ot 4 ress or Resistance Ratio. CSR or CBR ia 81094 cyclic 0 00 200 300 Oveiburden Stress-Corrected Shear Wave Velocity, Ver, m/s Fig. { - Curves Proposed by Andrus et al. (1999) for Calculation of CRR from , Measurements Along with Case History Data Based on Lower Bound Values of MSF for the Range Recommended by the 1996 NCEER Workshop (Youd et al, 1997) and Average r, Values Developed by Seed and ldriss (1971), 1080 Loma Pita Earthquake, My 7 yc Sew COvwtbyrdonSuess-Conected Shes Sa Fines ebisance Rito, Fatoraf Sato, son a a aso eg we 00 Oa ta : oer Tap 7 st a sity ‘ahoe 7 | ay = a oa (possi “| | Sumped on | | - | IE ae 7 -csal | j= é a | wages sa - | 1 cme f be i Ab et I | oo we © o ‘e Application of the Recommended Procedure to the Treasure Island Fire Station Site. Crosshole Jest Array BIBS, ama