Probabilistic and Hazard Analysis for Pore Pressure Increase in Soils Due to Seismic Loading

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: The build-up of excess pore pressures in a layer of saturated cohesionless soil during an earthquake can lead to ground movements which damage structures and cause loss of life. This response is due to the application of cyclic shear stresses, which are generated primarily by the upward propagation of shear waves in the soil deposit. As a consequence of the applied cyclic stresses, the structure of the undrained cohesionless soil tends to become more compact, and this results in a transfer of stress to the pore water and a reduction in effective stress. If the sand is loose the pore pressure may increase rapidly to a value equal to the confining pressure and the soil layer will undergo large deformations. If the sand is dense, it may exhibit a zero effective stress condition at the end of a given cycle, but during subsequent cycles the soil will tend to dilate, the pore pressure will drop, and the soil may develop enough resistance to withstand the applied stress. The shear strain associated with this dilation will correspond to a limited degree of deformation. The extreme case of pore pressure increase up to the zero effective stress condition is often called liquefaction, and enormous damages have been attributed to this phenomenon. There are hundreds of recent cases of ground failures and damages to structures due to liquefaction during Earthquakes in China, Japan, Yugoslavia, Chile, Central America and in the United States.

Type of resource	text
Date created	May 1981

Author	Chameau, J-L

Subject	soil
Subject	ground motions
Subject	probabilistic seismic hazard analysis
Subject	shear strain
Genre	Technical report

Related item	Title John A. Blume Earthquake Engineering Center
Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/ky293sn3745

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License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY).

Preferred Citation: Chameau, JL . (1981). Probabilistic and Hazard Analysis for Pore Pressure Increase in Soils Due to Seismic Loading. John A. Blume Earthquake Engineering Center Technical Report 51. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/ky293sn3745

John A. Blume Earthquake Engineering Center Technical Report Series

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