Effects of fines content on uplift behavior of underground structures in liquefied ground

Abstract

The research regarding the liquefaction itself started decades ago, with sand being the main material due to its highest suspected potential to be liquefied compared to other materials. More recently, as it was proved that the fines-contained material is also suspected to be liquefied, more studies, focusing on the elementary tests, have already been conducted. However, fewer studies have been conducted to investigate the relationship between the fines content of the liquefied ground and the movements of structures in the ground during earthquakes, in this case, the uplift of the buried pipe structure. In this study, therefore, a series of 1-G shaking table tests were carried out to simulate the real-field situation in a ground condition with varying non-plastic fines content and a pipe model located within it. The experiments revealed that the ground model with a higher fines content is expected to have a lower total uplift displacement than the ground with less or no fines content, which is probably due to the effect of the strength recovery of the ground.