Updated liquefaction potential analysis eliminates foundation retrofitting of two critical structures
✍ Scribed by I Arango; M.R Lewis; C Kramer
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 639 KB
- Volume
- 20
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0267-7261
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✦ Synopsis
Developments in geotechnical engineering after 1970 prompted the reevaluation of the foundations of three large nuclear material processing buildings in 1994. Concerns were raised because the subsurface conditions beneath them contain a Miocene-age clayey sand stratum with very low standard penetration resistance values. A preliminary liquefaction potential evaluation based on Seed et al. [The in¯uence of SPT procedures in soil liquefaction resistance evaluation. Report no. UCB/EERC-84/15, October 1984] empirical procedures for Holocene-age data showed that based on the low blowcount the formation was lique®able, and that foundation retro®tting was in order.
Analysis of the soil performance during the Charleston, South Carolina earthquake indicated that the dynamic strength of sands increases with the age of the deposit [Lewis et al. Liquefaction resistance of old sand deposits. Paper presented at the Pan American Soil Mechanics Conference held in Brazil, 1999], a ®nding in agreement with conclusions reached earlier by Skempton [Standard penetration test procedures and the effects in sands of overburden pressure, relative density, particle size, aging and overconsolidation, Geotechnique 36(3) (1986) 425± 447], and, con®rmed later, by Kramer and Arango [Aging effects on the liquefaction resistance of sand deposits: a review and update.