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Influence of Motion Energy and Soil Characteristics on Seismic Ground Response of Layered Soil

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Abstract

The present study focuses on assessing local site effects (especially large-scale soil heterogeneity) and motion characteristics on seismic ground response using nonlinear one-dimensional numerical analysis. All nonlinear and curve-fitting parameters used for soil models were verified using the Class C1 prediction of centrifuge test results available in the literature. The comparison demonstrates that the available MKZ (pressure dependent Modified Kondner Zelesko) formulation with non-Masing hysteresis loading and unloading rule can reliably compute the 1-D ground response of cohesionless soil. Horizontal soil layers with different relative densities were considered next in various hypothetical models to assess the effect of subsurface properties on responses. One novel aspect of this study is that 51 different ground motions with a wide range of variation in their spectral accelerations, frequency contents, and duration characteristics were used to evaluate the effect of ground motion characteristics on the soil response. The results reveal that layering conditions play a significant role in modifying the seismic ground response of heterogeneous soil, especially when the loose liquefiable sand layer is sandwiched between two non-liquefiable soil layers. Relations were obtained to quantify the effect of different seismic inputs and varying site conditions on seismic ground response. The best correlation was obtained between the maximum excess pore water pressure (EPWP) development and the damage potential (Arias intensity) of an input ground motion. These relations can be used for estimating seismic ground response of an identical soil profile to that used in the present study for known design motion characteristics.

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Abbreviations

1-D:

One-dimensional

\(a_{1}, a_{2}, a_{3}\) :

Coefficient for nonlinear regression equation

\(a\left( t \right)\) :

Ground motion acceleration at time t

ACC:

Accelerometer

Adjusted R2 :

Generally the best indicator of the fit quality when additional coefficients were added to a model

\({\text{AI}}\) :

Arias intensity

\({\text{AI}}_{{{\text{input}}}}\) :

Input Arias intensity

\({\text{AI}}_{{{\text{response}}}}\) :

Response Arias intensity

\(b_{1} ,b_{2}\) :

Coefficient for the nonlinear regression equation

\(C_{i}\) :

Fourier amplitude of the entire accelerogram

\(c_{{\text{v}}}\) :

Coefficient of consolidation of the soil layer

c n :

Viscous damping of the nth layer

D :

Damping ratio

D r :

Relative density

EPWP:

Excess pore water pressure

\(f_{i}\) :

Discrete Fourier transform frequencies between 0.25 and 20 Hz

G :

Shear modulus

G max :

Maximum shear modulus of sand at small strains

G n :

Shear modulus of the nth layer

H :

Total height of the soil column

H n :

Height of the nth layer

\(k_{{2, {\max}}}\) :

Coefficient determined from the soil’s void ratio or relative density

k n :

Stiffness constant of the nth layer

M n :

Mass of the nth layer

NLA:

Nonlinear analysis

P1, P2,P3 :

Nonlinear parameters used in pore pressure generation and dissipation model

PPT:

Pore pressure transducer

PWP:

Pore water pressure

R 2 :

Square of the correlation between the response values and the predicted response values

r u :

EPWP ratio

\(T_{{\text{e}}}\) :

The total time duration of a ground motion

\(T_{{\text{m}}}\) :

Mean period

\(T_{{m}_{input}}\) :

Mean period of input motion

\(T_{{m}_{response}}\) :

Mean period of response

VELACS:

Verification of Liquefaction Analyses by Centrifuge Studies

V sn :

Shear wave velocity of nth layer

β, s, b, d :

Nonlinear parameters used in the material model

\(\rho_{n}\) :

Unit weight of the nth layer

\(\varphi\) :

Internal frictional angle

\(\sigma_{{\text{h}}}^{{\prime}}\) :

Effective stress acting on the horizontal direction

\(\sigma_{{\text{m}}}^{{\prime}}\) :

Mean principal effective stress

\(\sigma_{{\text{v}}}^{{\prime}}\) :

Effective stress acting on soil on the vertical direction

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Acknowledgements

The author(s) greatly acknowledge the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for the open-source software DEEPSOIL, the Department of Higher Education (Govt. of India) and IIT Patna for providing the funding for the present research work to carry out the doctoral research study of the first author for which no specific grant number has been allotted.

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  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, IIT Patna, Patna, 801106, India

    Angshuman Das & Pradipta Chakrabortty

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  1. Angshuman Das
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Correspondence to Pradipta Chakrabortty.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 3.

Table 3 Detailed ground motion characteristics of all input motions used in this study
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Das, A., Chakrabortty, P. Influence of Motion Energy and Soil Characteristics on Seismic Ground Response of Layered Soil. Int J Civ Eng 18, 763–782 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40999-020-00496-6

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