Liquefaction Damage Potential Indices

Student: Sneha Upadhyaya

Faculty Advisor: Russell A. Green (rugreen@vt.edu)

Adrian Rodriguez-Marek
(adrianrm@vt.edu)
Brett W. Maurer (bwmaurer@uw.edu)

Sponsors: NSF
USACE ERDC

Start/Completion Dates: August 2015 / May 2019

Research Objectives:
The main objectives of this research project are:
• To evaluate the performance of existing liquefaction damage potential indices (e.g., LPI
and LSN) using the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES) database.
• To develop an internally consistent and improved framework for assessing liquefaction
triggering and liquefaction damage potential.

An overview on liquefaction damage potential indices:

Liquefaction Potential Index (LPI):
Liquefaction Potential Index (LPI) was developed by Iwasaki et al. (1978) and is one of the most
common approaches used to characterize the damage potential of liquefaction. LPI assumes
that the severity of liquefaction surface manifestation is a function of depth (z) and thickness of
a liquefied layer and the amount by which the factor of safety against liquefaction (FS) in each
layer is less than 1. LPI is given by:
20 𝑚𝑚
𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿 = � 𝐹𝐹(𝐹𝐹𝐹𝐹). 𝑤𝑤(𝑧𝑧) 𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 (1)
0
where
1 − 𝐹𝐹𝐹𝐹 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝐹𝐹𝐹𝐹 ≤ 1
𝐹𝐹(𝐹𝐹𝐹𝐹) = �
0 𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜ℎ𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒 (2a)
and
𝑤𝑤(𝑧𝑧) = 10 − 0.5𝑧𝑧 (2b)
Despite its popularity, LPI has several shortcomings. For example, LPI assumes that surface
manifestations will not occur unless FS<1. However, liquefaction manifestation can occur due to
elevated excess pore pressures during shaking even when FS>1. Moreover, loose sand and
dense sand deposits both having a FS of 0.8 can have same LPI, but the resulting
consequences will likely be very different. The LPI framework does not account for either of
these phenomena.

Liquefaction Severity Index (LSN):

Liquefaction Severity Number (LSN) is an alternative damage index proposed by van Ballegooy
et al. (2014), that uses post-liquefaction volumetric strain (ε v ) as an index to account for
consequences due to liquefaction as a function of FS and soil density (i.e, D r ). LSN is given by:

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 𝜀𝜀𝑣𝑣
𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿 = � 1000 𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑
𝑧𝑧 (3)

where ε v can be obtained by using the ε v -D r -FS relationship proposed by Ishihara and
Yoshimine (1992).

Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) Analyses:

Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analyses is a popular tool used for evaluating the
relative efficacies of competing diagnostic tests. A ROC curve can be drawn by plotting the true
positive rate (R TP ) versus False Positive Rate (R FP ) for varying threshold values, e.g., threshold
value for LPI for surficial liquefaction manifestation. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) can
be used as a metric to evaluate the predictive performance of a diagnostic test whereby higher
AUC indicates better predictive capabilities. Using the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES)
database from New Zealand, ROC curves were obtained for both LPI and LSN and their AUC
values were compared as shown in Figure 1. As shown in Figure 1, LPI has a higher AUC than
LSN, despite LSN accounting for the ε v -D r -FS effect. One possible reason for this is that some
of the factors implicit in Equation 3 (such as density) are likely “double counted” because they
are used to compute both liquefaction triggering and the resulting damage. Thus, the triggering
curve and the liquefaction damage index framework need to be developed consistently as
opposed to independently.

Figure 1. ROC curves for LPI and LSN.

As part of my research, I plan to derive a “true” triggering curve in conjunction with the existing
damage indices such that the double counting of factors influencing liquefaction damage
potential is avoided. Moreover, I plan to develop an improved framework for assessing
liquefaction damage potential.

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