UC San Diego

Pile foundations have been significantly damaged by liquefaction-induced lateral spreading during earthquakes. There are large uncertainties regarding the effects of various soil properties on this pattern of soil-structure interaction. The main concern of this study is to numerically investigate the role of soil permeability in such lateral spreading scenarios. Through extensive calibration, finite element analysis models were developed in which the response reasonably matched experimental data from shake-table testing and centrifuge testing. The overall impact of permeability on the soil stratum and the pile response was similar for both situations. In most cases, soil displacement increased with increasing permeability, while pile load decreased