Effect of Fines on Liquefaction Triggering Analyses

Details

• Creators:
  Renugah, Varun N. S. ; Sahin, Arda ; Brandenberg, Scott J. ; Stewart, Jonathan P.
• Corporate Creators:
  Natural Hazards Risk and Resiliency Research Center (NHR3). Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. University of California, Los Angeles
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Cone Penetration Test Cone Penetrometers Cyclic Resistance Ratio Cyclic Softening Cyclic Strength Cyclic Tests Data Analysis Fine Materials Fines Content Laboratory Tests Liquefaction Liquefaction Triggering Resistance Tests Sand Soil Components

  More +
• Publication/ Report Number:
  CA25-4418
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Edition:
  4/08/2024 - 2/28/2025
• Corporate Publisher:
  California. Department of Transportation
• Abstract:
  This report presents a new framework for applying fines content corrections in soil liquefaction evaluations. Fines content affects both penetration resistance and cyclic resistance, but current methods use a single correction to represent both effects. This study separates these influences by using variable-rate CPT data to assess the effect of fines on penetration resistance, and cyclic laboratory test data to evaluate their impact on cyclic resistance. While fines consistently reduce penetration resistance, their effect on cyclic strength may increase or decrease depending on factors such as coarse fraction state, fines plasticity, and over consolidation. The influence of fines on CPT drainage conditions is examined to develop relationships that adjust measured cone resistance to equivalent drained conditions using the soil behavior type index. These relationships allow CPT data obtained under partially drained or undrained conditions to be normalized to clean-sand conditions. A methodology is proposed for evaluating cyclic strength of soils with varying fines content by integrating clean-sand liquefaction triggering concepts with fine-grained soil cyclic failure models. Clean sand resistance is evaluated using an NGL laboratory-based model, while fine-grained soil resistance is estimated using a new model developed in this report that accounts for plasticity and over consolidation. An interpolation approach is provided for soils with intermediate fines content. The proposed corrections are applied to critical layer data from an existing CPT-based triggering model and compared with legacy approaches. The study also assesses alternative seismic intensity measures and finds no improvement over peak horizontal acceleration and magnitude when evaluated against field liquefaction data.
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  65A0774 TO 011
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:0bd0573ac0363b6748ffe3a9d971f3bdd0bb6083c7d3819b2dc9dac2cac1eccbedbd6d99529a635d02830ec91d28b3c4aab5e3f839432651501aff7c7876ae76
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/90480/dot_90480_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 8.90 MB ]