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Journal of Geotechnical & Geoenvironmental Engineering / Volume 133 / Issue 7 / TECHNICAL PAPERS

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Return Period of Soil Liquefaction

J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng. 133, 802 (2007); doi:10.1061/(ASCE)1090-0241(2007)133:7(802) (12 pages)

Steven L. Kramer, M.ASCE1 and Roy T. Mayfield2

1Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-2700. E-mail: kramer@u.washington.edu
2Consulting Engineer, Kirkland, WA 98034; formerly, Graduate Research Assistant, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of Washington. E-mail: roy@mayfield.name

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(Submitted 4 April 2006; accepted 20 July 2006)

The paper describes a performance-based approach to the evaluation of liquefaction potential, and shows how it can be used to account for the entire range of potential ground shaking. The result is a direct estimate of the return period of liquefaction, rather than a factor of safety or probability of liquefaction conditional upon ground shaking with some specified return period. As such, the performance-based approach can be considered to produce a more complete and consistent indication of the actual likelihood of liquefaction at a given location than conventional procedures. In this paper, the performance-based procedure is introduced and used to compare likelihoods of the initiation of liquefaction at identical sites located in areas of different seismicity. The results indicate that the likelihood of liquefaction depends on the position and slope of the peak acceleration hazard curve, and on the distribution of earthquake magnitudes contributing to the ground motion hazard. The results also show that the consistent use of conventional procedures for the evaluation of liquefaction potential produces inconsistent actual likelihoods of liquefaction.

© 2007 ASCE

Acknowledgments

The research described in this paper was funded by the Washington State Department of Transportation; the support of Tony Allen and Kim Willoughby is gratefully acknowledged. A portion of the work was completed while the senior writer was on sabbatical leave at the International Centre for Geohazards at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, where he benefited greatly from discussions with Dr. Farrokh Nadim. The performance-based approach described in the paper was motivated by the senior writer’s involvement with PEER, and particularly by discussions with Professor C. Allin Cornell. The writers are grateful to Dr. Donald G. Anderson, Professor Stephen E. Dickenson, Dr. Robert M. Pyke, Professor Jonathan P. Stewart, and Steven G. Vick for their constructive comments.

Article Outline

  1. Introduction
  2. Liquefaction Potential
    1. Characterization of Earthquake Loading
    2. Characterization of Liquefaction Resistance
      1. Deterministic Approach
      2. Probabilistic Approach
  3. Seismic Hazard Analysis
  4. Performance-Based Liquefaction Potential Evaluation
  5. Comparison of Conventional and Performance-Based Approaches
    1. Idealized Site
    2. Locations
    3. Conventional Liquefaction Potential Analyses
    4. Performance-Based Liquefaction Potential Analyses
      1. Equivalent Return Periods
  6. Conditions for Consistent Liquefaction Potential
  7. Summary and Conclusions

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ARTICLE DATA

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)1090-0241(2007)133:7(802)

PUBLICATION DATA

ISSN:

1090-0241 (print)  
1943-5606 (online)

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ASCE

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