Cyclic Simple Shear Test Based Design Liquefaction Resistance Curve of Granular Soil

Abstract

We develop liquefaction resistance curves, which represent the correlation between cyclic resistance ratio (CRR) and number of cycles (N) to estimate the build-up of residual excess pore pressure from simple shear tests performed for this study and also from published literature. The liquefaction curve is calculated from two models. The comparisons show that one of the models is not reliable because it underestimates CRR. The scatter of the data is shown to be significantly reduced when CRR is normalized to the resistance ratio at N = 15 (CRRN=15). Use of the normalization is particularly useful because CRR can be easily estimated from field tests. From normalization, we propose mean, upper, and lower curves. The corresponding design equation and its parameters are also proposed. We believe that the proposed curves can be used for effective stress site response analyses and evaluation of the seismic performance of port structures.