Reliability assessment of the performance of granular column in the nonuniform liquefiable ground to mitigate the liquefaction-induced ground deformation

ABSTRACT

Granular columns have been widely used to mitigate the liquefaction-induced ground deformation. The increment in lateral stress due to densification, shear reinforcement, and drainage capacity of granular columns are believed to increase the liquefaction resistance of the ground. However, several case histories and recent research development exhibited the limitations of the effectiveness of granular columns under strong earthquakes. Besides, the mechanism of shear reinforcement governed by granular columns is poorly understood. Moreover, the spatial nonuniformity of the ground should be considered for a reliable engineering assessment of the performance of granular columns. A series of three-dimensional nonlinear stochastic analyses are carried out using the OpenSees framework with PDMY02 elasto-plastic soil constitutive model to map the reliability of the performance of equally-spaced granular columns. Soil variability is implemented with stochastic realizations of overburden and energy-corrected, equivalent clean sand, (N1)_60cs values using spatially correlated Gaussian random field. The reliability of the performance of granular column is assessed based on the stochastic distributions of average surface settlement and horizontal ground displacement associated with the degree of confidence. The implications of cumulative absolute velocity, Arias Intensity and peak acceleration of different ground motions on the efficacy of the granular column are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Granular column
• liquefaction
• spatial nonuniformity
• stochastic analyses

Acknowledgments

The first author sincerely acknowledges the support provided by the Monbukagakusho (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology) scholarship for international graduate students. The authors are also indebted to Dr. Gabriele Chiaro, Senior Lecturer, Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, for sharing the results of his experiments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.