The effects of surcharge on liquefaction resistance of silty sand

In the recent earthquakes, numerous cases of liquefaction occurred in sands containing both plastic and nonplastic fines that resulted in significant damage. Most previous research efforts have focused on clean sands regardless whether the sand contain fines or not made evident by widespread shallow foundation failures, numerous cases of settlement, and lateral displacement. Still, despite the amount of related research, results seem somewhat contradictory. This study directly demonstrates the beneficial or detrimental effect of uncertainty surcharges on seismic responses. Models were subjected to two destructive realistic events with similar PGA with various frequency contents and duration. In this paper, the dynamic analyses were conducted as fully non-linear elasto-plastic coupled stress-flow analyses with coupled liquefaction triggering which reasonably captured the actual behavior. The silty sand deposits underlying the surcharge are capable of liquefying and developing large shear deformations that can cause serious damage. Therefore, excess pore water pressure ratio cannot be enough by itself to evaluate liquefaction potential, so the deformations should be examined. Numerical results provide an estimate of the seismic performance liquefiable deposits underlying the surcharge; these results can be useful for a realistic practical engineering.