Short-Crested Wave-Induced Liquefaction in Porous Seabed

Abstract

To simplify a complicated problem, most previous investigations of wave-induced seabed response have been concerned with an isotropic seabed with uniform soil characteristics, even though strong evidence of anisotropic soil behavior and variable soil characteristics has been reported in soil mechanics literature. This paper proposes a finite-element model to investigate the response of a cross-anisotropic seabed with variable soil characteristics subjected to a three-dimensional short-crested wave system. Based on the present model, together with the liquefaction criterion, the wave-induced liquefaction potential can be estimated. The numerical results indicate that the influence of cross-anisotropic soil behavior and variable soil characteristics on the wave-induced seabed response (including liquefaction potential) cannot always be ignored without committing substantial errors.