Soil Liquefaction

Adelina Sentili, Sue Andreanna

Abstract – When there is a loss of strength in
saturated and non-cohesive soils due to
increased pore water pressure (PWP) and
consequently, effective stresses are lowered
due to dynamic loading, this phenomenon is
known as soil liquefaction. When soil liquefies,
the water pressure rises to a level where it can
successfully suspend or float soil particles by
overcoming gravity. Decreased soil strength
causes soil particles to move freely with each
other, which also affects the capacity of soil
deposits to support the foundation of a
building or bridge.
terms of the motion that will occur at the crest
of the embankment during an earthquake event
and to estimate the excess (PWP) that may
develop in a loose soil. Its FOS will be
analysed again under undrained strength
condition with seismic load as the post FOS.
Description of the project: -
The dam structure mentioned before is a
hydraulic filled dam as per Figure 1.

This paper presents a dynamic analysis

of liquefaction potentials of a dam structure
using GeoStudio 2012 and to recommend
Figure 1 Hydraulic Fill Dam
possible remedial measures against soil
liquefaction. The detail of the material is shown as in
Figure 2 with compacted fill, constructed on
Keyword: Liquefaction, pore pressure,
alluvium soil. Therefore, all the analysis will
saturated and non-cohesive soil, effective
be going to have three regions. A hydraulic
stress
filled dam is built by excavating and
Introduction: - transporting soils by using water. Flumes are
pipes that are installed along the
By using GeoStudio 2012, the purpose
of the study is to analyse the slope stability of
a ground by determining its static Factor of

Safety (FOS). It is also necessary to

conduct a dynamic analysis to analyse the
dynamic response of a loose soil deposit in

2
embankment’s exterior edge where water is
combined with the soil components before
being pushed into these flumes. Then, the
slush is discharged through the outlets at
strategic locations along the length of the
flumes.

The slush tends to settle down as it

Figure 2 Dam Structure
moves toward the bank’s centre where the
finer particles are conveyed and settle in the
centre, forming a zoned embankment with a
relatively impermeable central core. At the
same time, the coarser particles are deposited
shortly after discharge near the outside edge.

Since the fill is saturated when laid,

high pore pressures will develop in the core
material, and for that reason, the stability of
the dam must be checked. To check the
stability, SLOPE/W of GeoStudio 2012 is used
where the geometry is determined, materials
are assigned, (PWP) conditions and slip
surface geometry are drawn as per Figure 3.
All of these parameters will control the mode
of failure that is going to be analysed.
The piezometric line is simply added
and it goes through the compacted filled and
hydraulic filled, above the alluvium soil. From
this piezometric line, the pore-water pressure
condition is automatically developed. The blue
shaded zone (Figure 3) has water force arrows,
which shows that the resulting water force will
be applied normal to the ground surface line.
Then, the analysis can be run and the
FOS before subjected to seismic loading is
obtained.
Figure 3 Pore Water Pressure (PWP)
According to the United States Society
on Dams (USSD) (2011), old dams built of
improperly compacted sand or silt, as well as
tailings dams, account for almost all known
failure cases under earthquake load, primarily
because the embankment materials liquefied
and as a result, hydraulic filling techniques are
not frequently used in modern dam
construction.
Therefore, to demonstrate the failure,
Dynamic Analysis is performed with
QUAKE/W of GeoStudio 2012, with the time
history of earthquake shaking for Kalamata,
Greece as the input data. Figure 4 shows the
time history graph with highest acceleration of
0.23351 g at 39.74 s.

3
 Since the excess PWP is desired, MFS
PWP Data Function for Hydraulic Fill is
defined in which the sample functions is Silica
Sand, Dr = 45%.

On the other hand, mesh is fully

automatic and for this analysis, the mesh is of
mixed quad and triangle unstructured mesh
with 1.5 m size as shown in Figure 6.
Figure 4 Time History for Earthquake
Shaking, Kalamata, Greece

Nevertheless, a Dynamic Analysis

cannot be solved without first establishing the
initial stresses. Thus, Initial Static, as the
parent analysis is used to establish the initial
stresses. In Initial Static analysis, the boundary
conditions are of Fixed X (left and right
boundaries), Fixed X/Y (bottom boundary) Figure 5 Boundary Conditions, Model Type

and another boundary condition to simulate and Materials Properties.

water reservoir on the left side of the

embankment, with unit weight per unit depth
of 9.807 kN/m3.

However, in Dynamic Analysis, no

Reservoir Pressure is assigned, and Fixed Y
boundary condition is used at the left and right
boundaries instead. The initial PWP conditions Figure 6 Mesh Properties.
will be taken from the parent static analysis.
Three history points are selected within
Referring to GeoStudio Manual (2014), the
the domain where results will be saved for
dynamic response at a particular site is
each and every time step while integrating
affected by the excess PWP during earthquake
through the earthquake record. The history
shaking. Therefore, Non-Linear is type of
points are taken at the middle node of each
model used in this analysis as the excess PWP
region.
is computed during the shaking. The details for
the boundary condition, the model type as well Then, the earthquake data mentioned
as the materials properties are shown in Figure before will be defined. Referring to GeoStudio
5. Manual (2014), QUAKE/W is formulated on
the basis of a time integration scheme. This

4
means that the QUAKE/W steps through the �������� ������������ = 2.7 �
earthquake record at a specified time interval
All of these values will be defined under the
and does a finite element analysis for each step.
seismic load as per Figure 8.
After a successful analysis, the range value of
excess PWP for each contour line and the
maximum excess PWP are obtained while
zones at which the soil liquefies are shown in
yellow colour.

According to Irwansyah et al., (2013),

Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) describes
the correlation between the local ground
Figure 8 Seismic Loading
movement intensity, the earthquake magnitude,
and the distance from the earthquake’s RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: -
epicentre. Irwansyah et al., (2013) also added
Based on the analysis results, Figure 9
that the information regarding PGA
shows the liquefaction zone after the
characteristic caused by earthquake can be
occurrence of the earthquake. It can be noticed
obtained from the records of earthquake events
that the liquefaction takes place at some of the
in the past. For post FOS analysis, the PGA (%
core of the hydraulic fill parts and towards the
g) value is 8% g, taken at orange zone as per
downstream slope of the dam structures.
Figure 7.

Figure 7 PGA (%g) Range Value based on

Seismic Disaster Zone Map. Figure 9 Liquefaction Zone as Indicated by
the Yellow Shading.
The calculation for the horizontal and vertical
acceleration are as below. According to ( Al-Ibrahimi, (2019), the
earthquake forces has increased the pore water
���������� ������������ = 0.5 × 1.35 × 8
pressure and decrease the effective shear
���������� ������������ = 5.4 � strength of soil, hence resulting the
liquefaction zone in the core of the
�������� ������������ = 0.5 × 5.4
embankment structure. Therefore, the highest

5
excess pore water pressure is occurred at the
bottom of the hydraulic fill, below the
downstream slope, located at the exact
location of the liquefaction zone, as shown in
Figure 10. Based on the analysis in Figure 11,
the pore water pressure has exceeded more
than 90 kPa (93.93 kPa).
Meanwhile, the liquefaction zone
takes most of the core of the dam structures,
hence resulting in slope failure. In this analysis,
the stability of the slope before and after the
seismic event is observed. The factor of safety
(FOS) of the slope before the seismic event
was found to be 2.283, which are above the
safe value of 1.5. However, after the seismic
event, the FOS of the slope was found to be
0.429 (Figure 13), which was way below the
minimum requirement of factor of safety of
dam slope. Therefore, indicates that the slope
experience slope failures.

Figure 10 Excess PWP Contour.

Figure 12 FOS of the slope at static conditions.

Figure 11 Result of Excess PWP.

The liquefaction of the hydraulic fill is

highly expected as the hydraulic fills are often
deposited in a loose state making them
susceptible to liquefy. When the soil material
is very loose, it causes undrained softening to
occur, which resulting in a significant loss of Figure 13 FOS of the slope after seismic
strength of soil after the peak ground condition.
acceleration reached (Gens, 2019). In addition,
Based on the analysis, the slope failure
earthquake forces also increase the water table.
was illustrated occurred at the hydraulic fill,
It was shown in Figure 10 that after the
the location of the liquefaction zone. As
earthquake, a phreatic line is formed above the
mentioned before, the liquefaction decreases
hydraulic fill as water flows toward the
the effective shear strength of soil, hence
unsaturated embankment from the saturated
causes the slope to displace. Moreover, Figure
loose compacted fill soil.

6
14, 15 and 16. shows the lateral sliding of
gently sloping ground due to soil liquefaction
in terms of time. At the end of the 39.74
seconds of shaking, the permanent settlement
at the base of the dam is about 11.98 mm, -
2.41 mm at 39.47s at middle and -3.67 mm at
39.47s at the crest. For the response of the dam,
the maximum acceleration (X-direction) value
at the crest of the dam is about 0.6 g, however,
there is not much difference between the
record and the input record of peak ground
acceleration of the earthquake time history.
Thus, there is no significant amplification or
unrealistic damping.

Figure 15 Lateral displacement at middle.

Figure 14 Lateral displacement at base.

Figure 16 Lateral displacement at crest.

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 CONCLUSION: -

To conclude, it can be noticed that

hydraulic fill parts were highly affected by the
seismic event as the core parts and towards the
downstream slope of the dam structures are
mostly liquefied. The results then reflect to the
generation of excess pore water pressure at
exact location of liquefaction zone.
Furthermore, the FOS of the dam slope before
the seismic event is recorded to be 2.283,
which fall within allowable and safe range.
However, upon after seismic event, the FOS
recorded is 0.429. The huge differences of
FOS value between the before and after
indicating a slope failure occurs. The loss of
strength of soil due to liquefaction causes the
slope to displace. Lastly, to prevent the
Figure 15 X-acceleration vs time at crest.
liquefaction, especially for the dam structures,
Therefore, to improve the dam quality, method such as deep dynamic compaction is
several remediation of liquefaction hazards the most suitable and effective method. This
can be conducted to prevent the future method basically involves the densification of
occurrence of liquefaction whenever soil, in which in this study, densification of the
earthquake happens. Firstly, soil improvement hydraulic fill soil able to improve the dam
such as soil replacement, deep dynamic structures.
compaction, vibro-compaction, and deep soil
In addition, the soil can also undergo
mixing. According to Ali (2012), the most
structural modification by method of pile
effective technique is deep dynamic
compaction method. In this method, the sand
compaction, in which it involves repeatedly
compression pile is an excellent technique to
dropping of heavy weight from a crane on
be implement especially for any depths greater
each impact point. The impact energy then
than 28 meters. The method involves the
densifies the soil at depth, hence, minimize
improving of soft grounds, in which the
ground vibrations. In addition, the deep
combination of densification and drainage.
dynamic compaction technique able to
This method is also practical constructible and
enhance bearing capacity to desired limits at
economical.
desired depth.

8
 From the study analysis, it is important
to identify and analyze the reaction of the soil
and building when the occurrence of
earthquake. This is due to the factor of safety
of any constructed structures as earthquake
forces may severely affects the soil structures
and performance. Moreover, numerical
modeling via Slope/W and Quake/W gives a
clearer visual and graphics when interpreting
the data such as graphs, contour lines,
animations, interactive data and more for
further analysis. Powerful visualization of data
able to enhance the understanding of users,
especially students towards physical complex
engineering problems of geological studies,
especially on the liquefaction, dynamic
analysis, stability analysis and more. The
visualization of data and proper events
interpretation may increase the success of the
project upon execution of the actual physical
processes.
Irwansyah, E., Winarko, E., Rasjid, Z. E., & Bekti,
R. D. (2013, April). Earthquake hazard
zonation using peak ground acceleration (PGA)
approach. In Journal of Physics: Conference
Series (Vol. 423, No. 1, p. 012067). IOP
Publishing.
Gens, A. (2019). Hydraulic fills with special focus
on liquefaction. 17th European Conference on
Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering,
ECSMGE 2019 - Proceedings, 52–82.
https://doi.org/10.32075/17ECSMGE-2019-
1108
United States Society on Dams (USSD), (2011).
Materials for Embankment Dams. Denver, CO:
U.S Society on Dams.
https://www.ussdams.org/wp-
content/uploads/2016/05/materials.pdf

REFERENCES

Ali, S. (2012). Liquefaction Remediation. In

Advances in Geotechnical Earthquake
Engineering - Soil Liquefaction and Seismic
Safety of Dams and Monuments. InTech.
https://doi.org/10.5772/28905

Al-Ibrahimi, M. (2019). Effect of Earthquakes on

Earthfill Dams.
https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.34558.64326

GeoStudio Manual (2014). Dynamic Modelling

With QUAKE/W. Canada:GEO-SLPE
International, Ltd. http://downloads.geo-
slope.com/geostudioresources/books/8/15/qua
ke%20modeling.pdf