Midas GTS NX: Seismic Stability Comparison of Embankment During Liquefaction

Overview
This case study covers a seismic stability procedure of a pond embankment located in a seismic zone with soil layers susceptible to liquefaction. While there are traditional seismic stability procedures which can evaluate the potential for liquefactions of embankments (SPT, CPT or Vs methods), they have limitations when it comes to estimate the performance of the embankment during and after earthquakes. This course will cover the steps of coupled effective-stress analysis and the pros and cons of two analysis methods, FDM and FEM.

The analysis tool used in numerical analyses originally is the two-dimensional, finite difference method, FLAC (Itasca, 2014). In order to check the applicability of finite element method to potential liquefiable related problem, the same pond embankment was modeled by GTSNX (MIDAS IT, 2017) too. The results using both methods are compared qualitatively to demonstrate the applicability of finite element method in liquefaction related deformation analysis under earthquake loading.

Learning Objectives
1. What is liquefaction and how does it affect the soil.
2. What are the consequences of liquefaction on the soil and for structures.
3. Significance for modeling liquefaction and what considerations must be made.
4. Finite Element vs Finite Difference method - Advantages and Disadvantages.

Presentation Slides

Speaker :  Fenggang MA Category : Geotechnical Software : midas GTS NX Date : 2017-08-08