Simplified Procedure for Evaluating Soil Liquefaction Potential

Significant factors affecting the liquefaction (or cyclic mobility) potential of sands during earthquakes are identified, and a simplified procedure for evaluating liquefaction potential which will take these factors into account is presented. Available field data concerning the liquefaction or nonliquefaction behavior of sands during earthquakes is assembled and compared with evaluations of performance using the simplified procedure. It is suggested that even the limited available field data can provide a useful guide to the probable performance of other sand deposits, that the proposed method of presenting the data provides a useful framework for evaluating past experiences of sand liquefaction during earthquakes and that the simplified evaluation procedure provides a reasonably good means for extending previous field observations to new situations. When greater accuracy is justified, the simplified liquefaction evaluation procedure can readily be supplemented by test data on particular soils or by ground response analyses to provide more definitive evaluations.