Development of Dissipation Model of Excess Pore Pressure in Liquefied Sandy Ground

Abstract

Recently, several studies on the dissipation of excess pore pressure in liquefied sandy grounds have been reported on evaluation of postliquefaction behavior of structures. To further contribute to the understanding of this complicated dynamic phenomenon, centrifuge tests were performed in this research to analyze the liquefaction behavior of level saturated sandy grounds. The test results showed that the excess pore pressure in the liquefied sand was dissipated by the combined process of the solidification of the sand grains and the consolidation of the solidified layer. Based on the test results, a nonlinear model for the solidified layer thickness versus time, i.e., the solidification velocity, was developed. A new dissipation model was also developed by combining the nonlinear solidification model with Scott’s theory to improve the prediction for the time history of excess pore pressure. In addition, a method for evaluating the input parameters in the dissipation model was proposed by relating the parameters to the particle size and the relative density of soils. The proposed dissipation model properly estimated the dissipation of excess pore pressure with time observed in the centrifuge experiments.