Mitigation of Soil Liquefaction Under Strip Footing by Densification: A Numerical Investigation

Abstract

Simple procedures are available to capture the characteristic response of loose sand under cyclic loading in free field conditions. However, the applicability of these procedures to evaluate the performance of the geotechnical structures overlying the saturated granular soil remains as a concern since the responses exhibited by the soil are very complex in these cases. One such case involving the strip foundation on top of liquefiable sand is numerically studied. The constitutive behavior of the sand is modeled using PM4Sand. In addition to the basic case, soil densification which has been a traditional remediation measure against liquefaction of saturated loose sand deposits is considered to mitigate the deformations of the strip footing. The depth of densified column below the footing is varied in order to assess its influence on the performance of the footing during seismic shaking. The settlement and excess pore water pressure corresponding to the five different cases of numerical model including an untreated model and four other models with different vertical extent are presented and its implications on the response of the footing are discussed.