Abstract:

The type of soil layers, their geotechnical properties, dynamic behavior, and liquefaction occurs due to earthquake characteristics are among the main soil-related factors that may have negative effects on the behavior of engineering structures during earthquakes. Liquefaction-induced settlements should be predicted to reflect the truth, and an appropriate improvement method that can be proven to be economical and controllable with engineering studies should be selected and measures should be taken. In this study to limit the liquefaction-induced settlements, it is proposed to construct an engineering fill layer of a certain thickness on the liquefied layer, considering the Ishihara criterion, and the changes in the liquefaction-induced settlements after the improvement were investigated by numerical analysis in which the dynamic behavior of the sand soil layers was completed with the PM4Sand Constituent Model. In addition, liquefaction-induced settlements before the improvement were also calculated with different semi-empirical relations and compared with the numerical analysis results, the most appropriate semi-empirical correlation was determined. It is thought that the study will be an alternative to the commonly used improvement methods and can provide an exemplary engineering practice for the cost-effective design of soil improvement with the construction of a non-liquefied layer on the liquefied layer.

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