Experimental study on sand-tire chip mixture foundations acting as a soil liquefaction countermeasure

Abstract

Soil liquefaction is a phenomenon associated with strong earthquakes and it can affect large areas. High-rise and low-rise buildings, residential structures typically of 1–2 storeys, may be equally prone to the destructive consequences of liquefaction. For the case of high-rise buildings, expensive solutions like well-designed piles with ground improvement can be used. However, in the case of smaller residential structures, this is not economically viable. To this purpose, the current research explores the effectiveness of a novel proposed low-cost liquefaction protection technique, where the soil underneath the foundation is replaced by a sand-tire chip mixture base reaching down to a certain depth. Series of triaxial and shaking table tests were performed for a range of parametric scenarios to, mainly mechanistically, assess the effectiveness of such a mitigation technique, since similar previous studies are extremely limited. The tests have shown that the closest the considered base is to the surface, the thicker it is and with higher tire ratio, the more effective it can become on controlling the pore pressure rise that leads to liquefaction.