Estimation of liquefaction potential: A case study in San Francisco, California

摘要

One of the main issues with the infrastructure construction in seismic regions is liquefaction. This paper reports on a case study of liquefaction evaluation of a proposed building site in San Francisco, California. The risk of liquefaction was assessed considering the following site specific factors: ground water table, liquefaction hazard maps, soil type, soil density, and peak ground acceleration. The analysis revealed that the selected region has low risk of liquefaction. However, it is suggested that the uncertainty associated with the estimation of corrected SPT N value (e.g., spatial variability, other human errors, etc.) should be accounted by incorporating an additional site-specific reduction factor in the estimation of Cyclic Resistance Ratio (CRR) of the soil.