Regional Evaluation of Liquefaction-Induced Lateral Ground Deformation for City-Scale Transportation Resilience Analysis

Abstract

This study depicts a scenario where vulnerability to soil liquefaction leads to the deterioration of a city-scale traffic system shortly after an earthquake. A novel framework for evaluating city-scale traffic performance under a secondary seismic hazard, liquefaction, is developed. At the core of this framework is a rapid regional liquefaction estimation method, where liquefaction hazard is first evaluated based on geotechnical in situ testing data at specific sites and then mapped through the whole region using random field models, which preserves the spatial dependence of soil properties yet allows accounting for uncertainties and variabilities within the studied region. The liquefaction hazard is quantified by the lateral deformation manifested at the ground surface, which is fed into the traffic network, causing disruptions on roads. The performance of the transportation network is simulated utilizing an agent-based modeling (ABM) method. The proposed framework is demonstrated in an example application. By comparing with existing knowledge and observations, it is found that the framework is capable of identifying liquefaction zones and modeling city-scale transportation performance.