State of the Art and Practice in the
Assessment of Earthquake-Induced Soil
Liquefaction and Its Consequences
Committee on State of the Art and Practice in Earthquake Induced Soil
Liquefaction Assessment
Board on Earth Sciences and Resources
Division on Earth and Life Studies
A Consensus Study Report of
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, DC
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This activity was supported by contracts between the American Society of Civil Engineers, an award from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, an award from the Port of Long Beach, an award from the Port of Los Angeles, Grant No. R11AP81544 from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Award No. DTFH6114P00075 from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration, and Award No. NRC-HQ-12-G-04-0061 from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or agency that provided support for the project.
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Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. State of the Art and Practice in the Assessment of Earthquake-Induced Soil Liquefaction and Its Consequences. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/23474.
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COMMITTEE ON STATE OF THE ART AND PRACTICE IN EARTHQUAKE INDUCED SOIL LIQUEFACTION ASSESSMENT1
EDWARD KAVAZANJIAN, JR. (NAE), Chair, Arizona State University, Tempe
JOSÉ E. ANDRADE, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
KANDIAH “ARUL” ARULMOLI, Earth Mechanics, Inc., Fountain Valley, California
BRIAN F. ATWATER (NAS), U.S. Geological Survey and University of Washington, Seattle
JOHN T. CHRISTIAN (NAE), Independent Consultant, Burlington, Massachusetts
RUSSELL GREEN, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg
STEVEN L. KRAMER, University of Washington, Seattle
LELIO MEJIA, AECOM, Oakland, California
JAMES K. MITCHELL (NAS/NAE), Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Retired), Blacksburg
ELLEN RATHJE (NAS/NAE), The University of Texas at Austin
JAMES R. RICE, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
YUMEI WANG, Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, Portland
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Staff
SAMMANTHA MAGSINO, Study Director
COURTNEY R. GIBBS, Program Associate
___________________
1 Staff and affiliations current as of September 2015.
BOARD ON EARTH SCIENCES AND RESOURCES2
GENE WHITNEY, Chair, Congressional Research Service (Retired), Washington, DC
R. LYNDON (LYN) ARSCOTT, International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (Retired), Danville, California
CHRISTOPHER (SCOTT) CAMERON, GeoLogical Consulting, LLC, Houston, Texas
CAROL P. HARDEN, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
T. MARK HARRISON, University of California, Los Angeles
ANN S. MAEST, Buka Environmental, Boulder, Colorado
DAVID R. MAIDMENT, The University of Texas at Austin
M. MEGHAN MILLER, UNAVCO, Inc., Boulder, Colorado
ISABEL P. MONTAÑEZ, University of California, Davis
HENRY N. POLLACK, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
MARY M. POULTON, University of Arizona, Tucson
JAMES M. ROBERTSON, Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, Madison
SHAOWEN WANG, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Staff
ELIZABETH A. EIDE, Director
ANNE M. LINN, Scholar
DEBORAH GLICKSON, Senior Program Officer
SAMMANTHA L. MAGSINO, Senior Program Officer
NICHOLAS D. ROGERS, Financial and Research Associate
COURTNEY R. GIBBS, Program Associate
ERIC J. EDKIN, Senior Program Assistant
RAYMOND M. CHAPPETTA, Program Assistant
___________________
2 Staff and affiliations current as of September 2015.
Acknowledgments
The committee relied on input from the geotechnical engineering community in addition to the expertise contained within the itself. Thoughtful input from many technical experts informed committee deliberations. We gratefully acknowledge the following individuals for giving presentations or serving on panels during the committee’s 2-day community workshop or during information-gathering sessions at committee meetings: Donald Anderson, CH2M Hill; Ronald Andrus, Clemson University; Pedro Arduino, University of Washington; Gregory Baecher, University of Maryland; Laurie Baise, Tufts University; Steven Bartlett, University of Utah; Michael Beaty, Beaty Engineering, LLC; Ronaldo Borja, Stanford University; Scott Brandenberg, University of California, Los Angeles; Giuseppe Buscarnera, Northwestern University; Misko Cubrinovski, University of Canterbury, New Zealand; Craig Davis, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power; Ricardo Dobry, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; David Gillette, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation; Antonio Gioiello, Port of Los Angeles; Leslie Harder, HDR, Inc.; Thomas Holzer, U.S. Geological Survey; Kenji Ishihara, Chuo University, Tokyo; Richard Iverson, U.S. Geological Survey; Robert Kayen, U.S. Geological Survey; Geoffrey Martin, University of Southern California; Milan Pavich, U.S. Geological Survey; Peter Robertson, Gregg Drilling and Testing, Inc.; Robert Schweinfurth, Geo-Institute/American Society of Civil Engineers; Jonathan Stewart, University of California, Los Angeles; Thomas Weaver, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and T. Les Youd, Brigham Young University (Emeritus).
Ross Boulanger, University of California, Davis; K. Önder Çetin; Middle East Technical University, Turkey; Izzat M. Idriss, University of California, Davis; and Raymond Seed, University of California, Berkeley, provided helpful written responses to questions from the committee.
The committee also thanks Tarek Abdoun, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Scott Anderson, U.S. Federal Highway Administration; Christopher Baxter, University of Rhode Island; Brady Cox, The University of Texas at Austin; Yannis Dafalias, University of California, Davis; Shideh Dashti, University of Colorado Boulder; Roupen Donikian, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Inc.; Kevin Franke, Brigham Young University; Ian Friedland, U.S. Federal Highway Administration; Daniel Gillins, Oregon State University; Youssef Hashash, University of Illinois; Jianping Hu, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power; Harold Magistrale, FM Global; Majid Manzari, George Washington University; Allen Marr, Geocomp Corporation; Neven Matasovic, Geosyntec Consultants; Jorge Meneses, Group Delta Consultants, Inc.; Yoshi Moriwaki, GeoPentech; Adam Perez, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power; Didier Perret, Natural Resources Canada; Daniel Pradel, University of California, Los Angeles; Michael Riemer, University of California, Berkeley; Curt Scheyhing, Group Delta Consultants, Inc.; Thomas Shantz, California Department of Transportation; Sabanayagam Thevanayagam, State University of New York at Buffalo; Kohji Tokimatsu, Toyko Institute of Technology, Japan; Sjoerd Van Ballegooy, Tonkin and Taylor; Rick Wentz, Wentz Pacific, LTD; Derek Wittwer, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation; and Zia Zafir, Kleinfelder, for contributing to meaningful discussions during meetings and the committee workshop. Many members of the technical community interacted with members of the committee throughout the conduct of this study. The committee is appreciative of all this input.
This Consensus Study Report was reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in making each published report as sound as possible and to ensure that it meets the institutional standards for quality, objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process.
We thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations of this report nor did they see the final draft before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Robin McGuire, Lettis Consultants International, Inc., and Andrew White, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They were responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with the standards of the National Academies and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content rests entirely with the authoring committee and the National Academies.
Contents
State of Practice for Liquefaction Assessment
Prior Reviews of Liquefaction Assessment
2 A PRIMER ON EARTHQUAKE-INDUCED SOIL LIQUEFACTION
Factors Affecting Liquefaction Potential and Its Consequences
Soil Resistance to Liquefaction
Site Characterization for Case History Assessments
Liquefaction Triggering Case Histories
Site-Specific Ground Motion Recordings
Lateral Spreading Case Histories
Post-Liquefaction Shear Strength Case Histories
Nontraditional Sources of Data
Enhancing Database Development
4 THE SIMPLIFIED STRESS-BASED APPROACH TO TRIGGERING ASSESSMENT
Geotechnical Field Data for Liquefaction Triggering Analyses
Interpreting the Results of Stress-Based Triggering Analysis
5 ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO LIQUEFACTION TRIGGERING ASSESSMENT
Regional Liquefaction Hazard Maps and Past Occurrence of Liquefaction
Laboratory and Physical Model Testing
Field Measurement of Pore-Pressure Generation Under Dynamic Loading
Computational Mechanics Approaches to Assess Liquefaction Triggering
6 RESIDUAL SHEAR STRENGTH OF LIQUEFIED SOIL
Residual Shear Strength of Sandy Soils
7 EMPIRICAL AND SEMIEMPIRICAL METHODS FOR EVALUATING LIQUEFACTION CONSEQUENCES
Liquefaction-Induced Settlement
Utilities and Buried Structures
Liquefaction-Induced Modification of Ground Motions
8 USE OF COMPUTATIONAL MECHANICS TO PREDICT LIQUEFACTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
Computational Liquefaction Modeling in Engineering Practice
Issues in the Computational Modeling of Liquefaction Problems
Constitutive Modeling of Liquefiable Soil
Recent Computational Research Developments Applicable to Liquefaction Analysis
9 PERFORMANCE-BASED EVALUATION AND DESIGN
Approaches to Performance-Based Evaluation
Future Developments for Performance-Based Evaluations
Collecting, Reporting, and Assessing Data Sufficiency and Quality
Addressing the Spatial Variability and Uncertainty of Data
Improving Tools for Assessing Liquefaction Triggering and Its Consequences
Improving Research and Practice
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
B MEETING AGENDAS AND WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS
C HISTOGRAMS (OR PARAMETER DISTRIBUTIONS) OF RECENT LIQUEFACTION TRIGGERING DATABASES