December 10, 2020
In the current geotechnical seismic design practice, the empirical correlation between equivalent number of uniform cycles (N
eq) of shaking and earthquake magnitude (M
w) forms an integral part of liquefaction potential evaluation. The relationship, in turn, is used to derive the magnitude scaling factors that are commonly used in the field-based liquefaction evaluation procedures. The equivalent number of uniform cycles (N
eq) versus earthquake magnitude (M
w) relationships for liquefaction assessment was examined for fine-grained soils using time-histories ranging from 5 < M
w ≤ 9 especially including the strong ground motion time histories from latest subduction zone earthquakes with M
w > 8.0. The experimental database available from cyclic direct simple shear (DSS) tests conducted on natural fine-grained soils retrieved from undisturbed soil sampling was used to obtain the cyclic shear resistance weighting curves for the study. The work presented herein has contributed to further improving the current models used to represent magnitude scaling factor (MSF) values for large earthquake magnitudes and the functional dependency of this parameter on soil type. The MSF-M
w curve derived for low-plastic Fraser River Delta silt lies in-between the MSF curves derived for clean sand and clay, resonating with the inferences that have been made that the silt behavior can neither be considered sand-like nor clay-like.
Verma, P., A. Seidalinova and D. Wijewickreme. 2018. “
Equivalent Number of Uniform Cycles Versus Earthquake Magnitude Relationships for Fine-grained Soils.” Canadian Geotechnical Journal. Published on the web 27 November 2018,
https://doi.org/10.1139/cgj-2018-0331
