Module-3

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 Portion
• Elementary Seismology-Causes of earthquakes-
Seismic waves-magnitude, intensity. Earthquake
hazard map of India.
• Seismic design philosophy- Stiffness, strength,
ductility, damping, center of mass, center of
rigidity, torsion.
• Earth quake effects on ground-liquefaction, land
slides.

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 Elementary Seismology
• Earth and its Interior
• Earth consists of Inner Core (radius ~1290km), Outer Core
(thickness ~2200km), Mantle (thickness ~2900km) and Crust
(thickness ~5 to 40km).
• Inner Core is solid and consists of heavy metals (e.g., nickel
and iron),
• Crust consists of light materials (e.g., basalts and granites).
• Outer Core is liquid in form and the Mantle has the ability to
flow.
• At the Core, the temperature is estimated to be ~2500°C, the
pressure ~4 million atmospheres and density ~13.5 gm/cc;

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 Elementary Seismology…
• Circulations
• Convection currents develop in the viscous Mantle,
because of prevailing high temperature and pressure
gradients between the Crust and the Core
• These convection currents result in a circulation of
the earth’s mass;
• hot molten lava comes out and the cold rock mass
goes into the Earth.

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 Elementary Seismology… Plate Tectonics
• Convective flows of Mantle material cause the Crust and some
portion of the Mantle, to slide on the hot molten outer core.
This sliding of Earth’s mass takes place in pieces called
Tectonic Plates.
• The surface of the Earth consists of seven major tectonic
plates and many smaller ones
• These plates move in different directions and at different
speeds from those of the neighbouring ones.
• Sometimes, the plate in the front is slower; then, the plate
behind it comes and collides - mountains are formed.
• two plates move away from one another -rifts are created
• two plates move side-by-side, along the same direction or in
opposite directions.

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 Elementary Seismology…
• Plate Tectonics…

• three types of inter-plate interactions are

– convergent,

– divergent and

– transform boundaries.

• The relative movement of these plate boundaries varies

across the Earth; on an average, it is of the order of a couple
to tens of centimeters per year

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 Earthquake
• Tectonic plates are made of rocky material.
• elastic strain energy is stored in them during the relative
deformations that occur due to the gigantic tectonic plate
actions
• when the rocky material along the interface of the plates
in the Earth’s Crust reaches its strength, it fractures and a
sudden movement takes place there
• the interface between the plates where the movement
has taken place (called the fault) suddenly slips and
releases the large elastic strain energy stored in the rocks
at the interface.
• sudden slip at the fault causes the earthquake…

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 The Earthquake… Causes…
• Earthquakes occur within the Earth’s crust along faults
that suddenly release large amounts of energy that have
built up over long periods of time.
➢ shaking during an earthquake is caused by seismic
waves.
➢ Seismic waves are generated when rock within the crust
breaks, producing a tremendous amount of energy.
➢ The energy released moves out in all directions as waves
➢ Earth’s crust near tectonic plate edges are forced to bend,
compress, and stretch due to the internal forces within
the earth, causing earthquakes.

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 Elementary Seismology… Types of Earthquakes and
Faults
• Most earthquakes in the world occur along the
boundaries of the tectonic plates as described above and
are called Interplate Earthquakes (e.g., 1897 Assam
(India) earthquake).
• earthquakes also occur within the plate itself but away
from the plate boundaries (e.g., 1993 Latur (India)
earthquake); these are called Intra-plate Earthquakes.
Here, a tectonic plate breaks in between.
• In both types of earthquakes, the slip generated at the
fault during earthquakes is along both vertical and
horizontal directions (called Dip Slip) and lateral
directions (called Strike Slip) with one of them
dominating sometimes.
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(((( ((( )))) ))
Vertical
Movement along
Dip-Slip Faults

Divergent

Convergent
Horizontal Movement Along
Strike-Slip Fault
 Normal Fault Quake - Nevada
Reverse Fault Quake - Japan

Strike Slip Fault Quake - California

 Seismic waves
• Seismic Waves
• Large strain energy released during an earthquake
travels as seismic waves in all directions through the
Earth’s layers, reflecting and refracting at each
interface.
• waves are of two types - body waves and surface
waves; the latter are restricted to near the Earth’s
surface
• Body waves consist of Primary Waves (P-waves) and
Secondary Waves (S waves), and
• Surface waves consist of Love waves and Rayleigh
waves.
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 Seismic waves…
• Under P-waves, material particles undergo
extensional and compressional strains along direction
of energy transmission
• under S-waves, material particles -oscillate at right
angles to it
• Love waves cause surface motions similar to that by
S-waves, but with no vertical component.
• Rayleigh wave makes a material particle oscillate in
an elliptic path in the vertical plane (with horizontal
motion along direction of energy transmission).

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 Seismic waves…
• P-waves are fastest, followed in sequence by S, Love
and Rayleigh waves.
• For example, in granites, P and S-waves have speeds
~4.8 km/sec and ~3.0km/sec, respectively.
• S-waves in association with effects of Love waves
cause maximum damage to structures by their
racking motion on the surface in both vertical and
horizontal directions.

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 Seismic waves…
• When P- and S-waves reach the Earth's surface, most
of their energy is reflected back. Some of this energy
is returned back to the surface by reflections at
different layers of soil and rock.

• Shaking is more severe (about twice as much) at the

Earth's surface than at substantial depths. This is
often the basis for designing structures buried
underground for smaller levels of acceleration than
those above the ground.

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 Seismic waves… Strong Ground Motions
• Shaking of ground on the Earth’s surface is a net consequence
of motions caused by seismic waves generated by energy
release at each material point within the three-dimensional
volume that ruptures at the fault.

• waves arrive at various instants of time, have different

amplitudes and carry different levels of energy.

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 Seismic waves… Characteristics
• motion of the ground can be described in terms of displacement,
velocity or acceleration.
• variation of ground acceleration with time recorded at a point on
ground during an earthquake is called an accelerogram.
• The nature of accelerograms - depending on
– energy released at source,
– type of slip at fault rupture,
– geology along the travel path from fault rupture to the Earth’s
surface,
– ground shaking;
– peak amplitude,
– duration of strong shaking,
– frequency content
– energy content
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 Seismic waves…
• Characteristics of Strong Ground Motions...
• Peak amplitude (peak ground acceleration, PGA)
• horizontal PGA value of 0.6g (= 0.6 times the acceleration due
to gravity) suggests that the movement of the ground can
cause a maximum horizontal force on a rigid structure equal
to 60% of its weight.
• Horizontal PGA values greater than 1.0g were recorded during
the 1994 Northridge Earthquake in USA.
• Usually, strong ground motions carry significant energy
associated with shaking of frequencies in the range 0.03-30Hz
(i.e., cycles per sec).).

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 Seismic waves…
• Characteristics of Strong Ground Motions

• maximum amplitude in the vertical direction is usually less

than that in the horizontal direction.

• In design codes, the vertical design acceleration is taken as 1/2

to 2 /3 of the horizontal design acceleration.

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 Terminology
• The point on the fault where slip starts is the Focus or
Hypocenter, and the point vertically above this on the surface
of the Earth is the Epicenter
• The depth of focus from the epicenter, called as Focal Depth,
is an important parameter in determining the damaging
potential of an earthquake.
• Most of the damaging earthquakes have shallow focus with
focal depths less than about 70km.
• Distance from epicenter to any point of interest is called
epicentral distance.
• A number of smaller size earthquakes take place before and
after a big earthquake (i.e., the Main Shock).
• Those occurring before the big one are called Foreshocks, and
the ones after are called Aftershocks.
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 Terminology
• Magnitude
• Magnitude is a quantitative measure of the actual size of the
earthquake.
• Professor Charles Richter noticed that
– (a) at the same distance, seismograms of larger earthquakes have
bigger wave amplitude than those of smaller earthquakes; and
– (b) for a given earthquake, seismograms at farther distances have
smaller wave amplitude than those at close distances.
• These prompted him to propose the now commonly used
magnitude scale, the Richter Scale.
• It is obtained from the seismograms and accounts for the
dependence of waveform amplitude on epicentral distance.
• This scale is also called Local Magnitude scale.

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 Terminology
• Magnitude...
• There are other magnitude scales, like the Body Wave
Magnitude, Surface Wave Magnitude and Wave Energy
Magnitude.
• These numerical magnitude scales have no upper and lower
limits; the magnitude of a very small earthquake can be zero
or even negative.
• An increase in magnitude (M) by 1.0 implies 10 times higher
waveform amplitude and about 31 times higher energy
released.
• For instance, energy released in a M7.7 earthquake is about
31 times that released in a M6.7 earthquake, and is about
1000 (≈31×31) times that released in a M5.7 earthquake.

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 Terminology
• Magnitude...
• Most of the energy released goes into heat and
fracturing the rocks, and only a small fraction of it
(fortunately) goes into the seismic waves that travel
to large distances causing shaking of the ground en-
route and hence damage to structures.

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Earthquakes are often classified into different groups based on
their size.
Annual average number of earthquakes across the Earth in
each of these groups is also shown in the table; it indicates
that on an average one Great Earthquake occurs each year.
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 Terminology
• Intensity
• Intensity is a qualitative measure of the actual shaking at a
location during an earthquake, and is assigned as Roman
Capital Numerals.
• There are many intensity scales.
• Two commonly used ones are the Modified Mercalli Intensity
(MMI) Scale and the MSK Scale.
• Both scales are quite similar and range from I (least
perceptive) to XII (most severe).

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 Terminology
• Intensity....
• The intensity scales are based on three features of shaking –
perception by people and animals, performance of buildings,
and changes to natural surroundings.
• Table gives the description of Intensity VIII on MSK Scale.
• Isoseismals- lines joining places with equal seismic intensity

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 Terminology
• Basic Difference: Magnitude versus Intensity

• Magnitude of an earthquake is a measure of its size.

• For instance, one can measure the size of an earthquake by
the amount of strain energy released by the fault rupture. This
means that the magnitude of the earthquake is a single value
for a given earthquake.
• On the other hand, intensity is an indicator of the severity of
shaking generated at a given location. Clearly, the severity of
shaking is much higher near the epicenter than farther away.
Thus, during the same earthquake of a certain magnitude,
different locations experience different levels of intensity.

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 Terminology
• Seismic Zones of India
• The varying geology at different locations in the country
implies that the likelihood of damaging earthquakes taking
place at different locations is different. Thus, a seismic zone
map is required to identify these regions.
• The maximum Modified Mercalli (MM) intensity of seismic
shaking expected in these zones were V or less, VI, VII, VIII,
and IX and higher, respectively.
• Parts of Himalayan boundary in the north and northeast, area
in the west were classified as zone V.

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 Terminology
• Seismic Zones of India ...
• The national Seismic Zone Map presents a large scale view of
the seismic zones in the country. Local variations in soil type
and geology cannot be represented at that scale. Therefore,
for important projects, such as a major dam or a nuclear
power plant, the seismic hazard is evaluated specifically for
that site. Also, for the purposes of urban planning,
metropolitan areas are microzoned.
• Seismic microzonation accounts for local variations in geology,
local soil profile, etc,.

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• Stiffness
• It is defined as the property of a material which is rigid and
difficult to bend.
• The unit of stiffness is Newtons per meter.
• Stiffness is applied to tension or compression.
• length of a bar with cross-sectional area and tensile force
applied

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 Stiffness Vs ductility
• Ductility describes the extent to which a material
(or structure) can undergo large deformations
without failing. The term is used in earthquake
engineering to designate how well a building will
endure large lateral displacements imposed by
ground shaking.
• Stiffness is a measure of how much force is
required to displace a building by a certain
amount. If it requires more force to shift Building
A than Building B, we would say that Building A is
stiffer. Stiffness can be advantageous with
respect to earthquake damage because it can
limit the deformation demands on a building.
 Damping
• All structures show some degree of energy loss during motion.
• This energy loss is referred to three main sources in numerical
analysis which are nonlinearity of members, energy radiation and
inherent damping.
• Characterization of damping forces in vibrating structures has long
been under focus of Earthquake Engineers.
• Damping capacity is defined as the ratio of the energy dissipated in
one cycle of oscillation to the maximum amount of energy
accumulated in the structure.
• Reduction of intensity with time / Cease of vibration with time

• Reduction of wind-induced/earthquake induced - Vibration Energy

→ Thermal Energy
 Damping
• Damping is a phenomenon by which mechanical energy is
dissipated (usually converted as thermal energy) in dynamic
systems.
• Vibrating systems can encounter damping in various ways like
– Intermolecular friction
– Sliding friction
– Fluid resistance
• Three primary mechanisms of damping are as:
– Internal damping – of material
– Structural damping – at joints and interface
– Fluid damping – through fluid -structure interactions
• Center of mass is the point where the object, if examined,
will have an equally distributed mass in all directions from
that point
• Center of gravity is the point where the object “suffers” no
torque by the effect of the gravitational force acted upon it.
For example, earth’s center of gravity in our solar system is
somewhere inside the sun.
• In a uniform field, center of gravity and center of mass are
basically identical and this is a good approximation for our
earth’s system and celestial mechanics at the level of our
solar system.
• Center of rigidity is the point where the object at which, if
force is applied, it won’t be able to rotate, but just translate in
space.
• When the center of rigidity is subjected to lateral loading, the
floor diaphragm will experience only translational
displacement.
• Other levels are free to translate and rotate since behavior is
coupled both in plan and along height.
• As a function of structural properties, center of rigidity is
independent of loading.
Seismic Effects on Structures

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 Seismic Effects on Structures
• Inertia Forces in Structures

• Earthquake causes shaking of the ground. So a building resting

on it will experience motion at its base.
• From Newton’s First Law of Motion, even though the base of
the building moves with the ground, the roof has a tendency
to stay in its original position. But since the walls and columns
are connected to it, they drag the roof along with them.
• tendency to continue to remain in the previous position is
known as inertia.

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 Seismic Effects on Structures
• Inertia Forces in Structures ...

• In the building, since the walls or columns are flexible, the

motion of the roof is different from that of the ground
• when the ground moves, even the building is thrown
backwards, roof experiences a force, called inertia force.
• If the roof has a mass M and experiences an acceleration a,
then from Newton’s Second Law of Motion, the inertia force FI
is mass M times acceleration a, and its direction is opposite to
that of the acceleration.
• more mass means higher inertia force. Therefore, lighter
buildings sustain the earthquake shaking better.

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 Seismic Effects on Structures
• Effect of Deformations in Structures

• inertia force experienced by the roof is transferred to the

ground via the columns, causing forces in columns.
• During earthquake shaking, the columns undergo relative
movement between their ends.
• movement is shown as quantity u between the roof and the
ground.
• columns would like to come back to the straight vertical
position, i.e., columns resist deformations. In the straight
vertical position, the columns carry no horizontal earthquake
force through them.

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 Seismic Effects on Structures
• Effect of Deformations in Structures...

• But, when forced to bend, they develop internal forces. The

larger is the relative horizontal displacement u between the
top and bottom of the column, the larger this internal force in
columns.
• Also, the stiffer the columns are (i.e., bigger is the column
size), larger is this force.
• For this reason, these internal forces in the columns are called
stiffness forces.
• stiffness force in a column is the column stiffness times the
relative displacement between its ends.

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 Seismic Effects on Structures
• Horizontal and Vertical Shaking

• Earthquake causes shaking of the ground in all three

directions – along the two horizontal directions (X and Y, say),
and the vertical direction (Z, say)
• Also, during the earthquake, the ground shakes randomly back
and forth (- and +) along each of these X, Y and Z directions.

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How Architectural Features affect Buildings during
Earthquakes
• Size of Buildings:

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How Architectural Features affect Buildings during
Earthquakes
• Horizontal Layout of Buildings:
• buildings with simple geometry in plan have performed well
during strong earthquakes.
• Buildings with re-entrant corners, like those U, V, H and +
shaped in plan have sustained significant damage. Many
times, the bad effects of these interior corners in the plan of
buildings are avoided by making the buildings in two parts.
• For example, an L-shaped plan can be broken up into two
rectangular plan shapes using a separation joint at the
junction (Figure 2c). Often, the plan is simple, but the
columns/walls are not equally distributed in plan. Buildings
with such features tend to twist during earthquake shaking.

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How Architectural Features affect Buildings during
Earthquakes
• Vertical Layout of Buildings:

• The earthquake forces developed at different floor levels in a

building need to be brought down along the height to the
ground by the shortest path; any deviation or discontinuity in
this load transfer path results in poor performance of the
building.
• Buildings with vertical setbacks (like the hotel buildings with a
few storeys wider than the rest) cause a sudden jump in
earthquake forces at the level of discontinuity
• Buildings that have fewer columns or walls in a particular
storey or with unusually tall storey tend to damage or collapse
which is initiated in
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 Buildings twist during Earthquakes
• Twist in buildings, called torsion by engineers, makes different
portions at the same floor level to move horizontally by
different amounts. This induces more damage in the frames
and walls on the side that moves more
• Many buildings have been severely affected by this excessive
torsional behaviour during past earthquakes. It is best to
minimize (if not completely avoid) this twist by ensuring that
buildings have symmetry in plan (i.e., uniformly distributed
mass and uniformly placed lateral load resisting systems). If
this twist cannot be avoided, special calculations need to be
done to account for this additional shear forces in the design
of buildings; the Indian seismic code (IS 1893, 2002) has
provisions for such calculations. But, for sure, buildings with
twist will perform poorly during strong earthquake shaking.
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 Seismic Design Philosophy for Buildings
• Earthquake-Resistant Buildings
• The engineers do not attempt to make earthquake proof
buildings that will not get damaged even during the rare but
strong earthquake; such buildings will be too robust and also
too expensive. Instead, the engineering intention is to make
buildings earthquake resistant; such buildings resist the
effects of ground shaking, although they may get damaged
severely but would not collapse during the strong earthquake.
• Thus, safety of people and contents is assured in earthquake-
resistant buildings, and thereby a disaster is avoided. This is a
major objective of seismic design codes throughout the
world..

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 Seismic Design Philosophy for Buildings
• Earthquake Design Philosophy- summarized as follows
• (a) Under minor but frequent shaking, the main members of
the building that carry vertical and horizontal forces should
not be damaged; however building parts that do not carry
load may sustain repairable damage.
• (b) Under moderate but occasional shaking, the main
members may sustain repairable damage, while the other
parts of the building may be damaged such that they may
even have to be replaced after the earthquake
• (c) Under strong but rare shaking, the main members may
sustain severe (even irreparable) damage, but the building
should not collapse.

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 Seismic Design Philosophy for Buildings
• Earthquake Design Philosophy...
• Thus, after minor shaking, the building will be fully
operational within a short time and the repair costs will be
small.
• And, after moderate shaking, the building will be operational
once the repair and strengthening of the damaged main
members is completed.
• But, after a strong earthquake, the building may become not
functional for further use, but will stand so that people can be
evacuated and property recovered.

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 Seismic Design Philosophy for Buildings
• Earthquake Design Philosophy...
• The consequences of damage have to be kept in view in the
design philosophy.
• For example, important buildings, like hospitals and fire
stations, play a critical role in post-earthquake activities and
must remain functional immediately after the earthquake.
• These structures must sustain very little damage and should
be designed for a higher level of earthquake protection.
• Collapse of dams during earthquakes can cause flooding in the
downstream reaches, which itself can be a secondary disaster.
Therefore, dams (and similarly, nuclear power plants) should
be designed for still higher level of earthquake motion.

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 Seismic Design Philosophy for Buildings
• Damage in Buildings: Unavoidable
• Design of buildings to resist earthquakes involves controlling the
damage to acceptable levels at a reasonable cost. Contrary to the
common thinking that any crack in the building after an earthquake
means the building is unsafe for habitation, engineers designing
earthquake-resistant buildings recognize that some damage is
unavoidable.
• Different types of damage (mainly visualized through cracks;
especially so in concrete and masonry buildings) occur in buildings
during earthquakes. Some of these cracks are acceptable (in terms
of both their size and location), while others are not.
• For instance, in a reinforced concrete frame building with masonry
filler walls between columns, the cracks between vertical columns
and masonry filler walls are acceptable, but diagonal cracks running
through the columns are not .
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 Seismic Design Philosophy for Buildings
• Acceptable Damage: Ductility
• Earthquake-resistant buildings, particularly their main
elements, need to be built with ductility in them. Such
buildings have the ability to sway back-and-forth during an
earthquake, and to withstand earthquake effects with some
damage, but without collapse .
• Ductility is one of the most important factors affecting the
building performance. Thus, earthquake-resistant design
strives to predetermine the locations where damage takes
place and then to provide good detailing at these locations to
ensure ductile behaviour of the building.

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 Seismic Design Philosophy for Buildings
• An earthquake-resistant building has four virtues in it, namely:
• (a) Good Structural Configuration: Its size, shape and
structural system carrying loads are such that they ensure a
direct and smooth flow of inertia forces to the ground.
• (b) Lateral Strength: The maximum lateral (horizontal) force
that it can resist is such that the damage induced in it does
not result in collapse.
• (c) Adequate Stiffness: Its lateral load resisting system is such
that the earthquake-induced deformations in it do not
damage its contents under low-to moderate shaking.
• (d) Good Ductility: Its capacity to undergo large deformations
under severe earthquake shaking even after yielding, is
improved by favourable design and detailing strategies.
• Seismic codes cover all these aspects. 76
 Seismic Design Philosophy for Buildings
• An earthquake-resistant building has four virtues in it, namely:
• (a) Good Structural Configuration: Its size, shape and
structural system carrying loads are such that they ensure a
direct and smooth flow of inertia forces to the ground.
• (b) Lateral Strength: The maximum lateral (horizontal) force
that it can resist is such that the damage induced in it does
not result in collapse.
• (c) Adequate Stiffness: Its lateral load resisting system is such
that the earthquake-induced deformations in it do not
damage its contents under low-to moderate shaking.
• (d) Good Ductility: Its capacity to undergo large deformations
under severe earthquake shaking even after yielding, is
improved by favourable design and detailing strategies.
• Seismic codes cover all these aspects. 77
 Earthquake damage
• Ground Failure - constructions collapse
• Fires - from broken gas and electrical lines
• Landslides - EQ's triggered; occur in
hilly/mountainous areas.
• Liquefaction- water-saturated, unconsolidated
materials flow
• Tsunami (seismic sea waves; "tidal" waves) -
can grow up to 65 m
Liquefaction
Liquefaction
• Liquefaction is a phenomenon in which the strength
and stiffness of a soil is reduced by earthquake
shaking or other rapid loading.
• Liquefaction and related phenomena have been
responsible for tremendous amounts of damage in
earthquakes around the world.
• Liquefaction occurs in saturated soils, that is, soils in
which the space between individual particles is
completely filled with water.
• This water exerts a pressure on the soil particles that
influences how tightly the particles themselves are
pressed together.

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• Prior to an earthquake, the water pressure is
relatively low. However, earthquake shaking can
cause the water pressure to increase to the point
where the soil particles can readily move with
respect to each other.
• Earthquake shaking often triggers this increase in
water pressure, but construction related activities
such as blasting can also cause an increase in
water pressure.
• When liquefaction occurs, the strength of the soil
decreases and, the ability of a soil deposit to
support foundations for buildings and bridges is
reduced

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• Liquefied soil also exerts higher pressure on
retaining walls, which can cause them to tilt or
slide. This movement can cause settlement of
the retained soil and destruction of structures
on the ground surface

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• Liquefaction occurs where ground water is near the surface in soils
composed of sands and silts. The soil temporarily loses strength and
behaves as a viscous liquid.
• Structures can settle or tip in the liquefied soil or be ripped apart as
the ground spreads laterally or flows. Flow failures can move over
kilometers at speeds of tens of kilometers per hour. They usually
develop in loose, saturated sand on slopes greater than five
percent.
• When subsurface sand layers lose strength because of liquefaction,
lateral spreading can occur in overlying sediments allowing them to
move down even the gentlest slopes. Soils may lose shear strength
allowing heavy structures to settle or tip and lightweight, buried
structures to rise buoyantly.
• Cracking may result from movement along faults, differential
compaction of the soil, or slides. Strong ground shaking has
compacted loose cohesionless materials and caused differential
ground settlements ranging from 5 cm to more than a meter.
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Liquefaction damage during the 1964 Great Alaska
earthquake (center), 1964 Nigaata, Japan earthquake
(left) and 1983 Nihonkai-Chubu earthquake (right)

Liquefaction effects from the 1977 Caucete

earthquake. Sand boils occurred (center) as
building settled. Ground failure (left and
right) was very common as water saturated
soils lost their strength.
 What is Liquefaction of Soils?
• A special situation arises during earthquake shaking in sandy
(cohesionless) soils that are loose and saturated with water.
Horizontal shaking of the earth at the bedrock level is
transmitted upwards to overlying layer(s) of soil.
• Saturated loose cohesionless soils have voids between soil
particles filled with water. During strong ground shaking,
loose sand tends to densify; this tends to compress water, but
because water is incompressible, it tends to escape out.
• Water cannot drain out quickly from the soil and therefore
pore water pressure increases in soil; this reduces the
effective stress between soil particles.

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 What is Liquefaction of Soils?...
• At some stage the effective stress may become almost zero. In
that situation, since soil strength depends on this effective
stress, the soil may loose its shear strength completely and
behave like a liquid; this phenomenon is called liquefaction.
• Buildings and structures rested on such soils can topple and
sink into the ground.
• Depending on soil properties and ground motion
characteristics, the earthquake may impose shear stress
demand in soil at some depth that exceeds shear strength
capacity of soil; soil liquefies over this depth

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• Physical Consequences of Liquefaction
• During liquefaction, cohesionless soil-water mixture tends to
behave like a liquid, and hence the ground tends to flatten
out.
• (1) Sinking and uplifting of structures As the cohesionless
soil-water mixture liquefies, structures tend to settle or sink
into the ground . In many cases, some parts of the building
may sink more than the others, leading to tilting of the
building. Similarly, buried structures tend to uplift and float
up to the surface, because their overall density is lower than
the liquefied soil.

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• Physical Consequences of Liquefaction
• (2) Slope failures and lateral spreading When soil at a lower
level looses its strength to hold any load, the overlying soil
layer may slide laterally, especially when slope is steep (>5%)
and the original soil is loose. This can cause landslides
extending over hundreds of meters of motion of soil mass . In
both loose and dense soils, when the slope is gentle (<3%),
forward movement of a large soil mass can cause
disintegration of the large soil mass behind it.
• Therefore, structures may sink and destabilize, if supported
by such soil. Soil movement due to lateral spreading can
exert significant stresses and damage in foundations and
bridge abutments causing damages.

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• Measures to overcome Liquefaction
• To overcome liquefaction one may:
• (a) Increase liquefaction-resistance of soil, e.g., densify loose
deposits (by vibro-compaction, impact compaction and
pressure grouting) or replace susceptible soil (by vibro-
replacement)
• (b) Reduce earthquake demand on soil, e.g., release of pore
water pressure by allowing drainage of water (by stone
columns), or increase confinement by adding a surcharge
• (c) Remove soil layers that can liquefy, or use anchored piles
as foundations going through liquefiable soil layers

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Land

slides
• Landslide: refers to the downward sliding of huge
quantities of land mass which occur along steep slopes of
hills or mountains and may be sudden or slow

• If a mass of earth moves along a definite plane or

surface the failure is termed as Landslide
• Large block known as a slump block moves
during the landslide.
• The scar above a landslide is easily visible.
• They can occur along a slope where the internal
resistance of the rocks are reduced or they loose
their holding capacity.
• Common after earthquakes or after removal of
part of the slope due to construction, particularly
for construction of roads.

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