Past, Present, and Future Developments in Liquefaction Hazard Analysis

Abstract

Liquefaction of soils has been widely recognized as an important cause of damage in many past earthquakes. Although recognized and named in the early 1950s (Mogami T, Kubo K, The behavior of soil during vibration. In: Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on soil mechanics and foundation engineering, vol 1, Zurich, pp 152–155, 1953; Terzaghi K, Variety of submarine slope failures. In: Proceedings of the 8th Texas conference on soils and foundation engineering, University of Texas, Austin, pp 1–41, 1956), liquefaction sprang to the attention of the geotechnical engineering profession in 1964 following large earthquakes in Niigata, Japan and Alaska, USA. Since that time, a great deal of research on soil liquefaction has been performed, particularly in Japan and the United states but also in other seismically active countries such as Canada, Chile, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Turkey. This research has led to breakthroughs in understanding of the basic mechanics of liquefiable soils, the development of practical, empirical procedures for evaluation of liquefaction potential, and the development of numerical procedures for site-specific analysis of liquefaction and its effects. This paper presents a brief and incomplete review of the history of liquefaction hazard evaluation, assesses its current status, and discusses future developments in this area.