A new empirical method to predict liquefaction-induced lateral spread

Abstract

Liquefaction-induced lateral spreading affects large areas and causes considerable damages to overlying structures and buried lifelines at shallow depths. In this study, the world-wide lateral spreading case studies compiled from literature and available records of some institutions were re-evaluated to assess the performance of the current empirical methods and to develop a new empirical method for predicting the magnitude of lateral spreading. The probability-based four empirical models were developed using the maximum likelihood methodology for predicting displacements of (a) a sloping ground, (b) a free face, of a ground (c) with and (d) without slope and free face, and their prediction performances were compared with those of the existing models.