Development of a Model for Liquefaction and the Study of the Propagation of Seismic Waves in Fluid Saturated Porous Media

Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, College Station TX

Investigators

Abstract

This research program will exploit progress that has been made in a variety of mechanics disciplines in order to develop a model for soil liquefaction, a phenomenon in which soils lose their solid-like response and develop fluid-like behavior, with catastrophic consequences for structures built on or of such soils. Specifically, it involves an extension of a thermomechanical framework that has proven very successful in describing numerous dissipative systems such as inelastic and viscoelastic bodies, and which has been particularly suited to describe the transition from solid-like to fluid-like behavior. The generalization of the framework to include a complex phenomenon such as soil liquefaction, and the propagation of waves in geological and fluid saturated media, will unify the modeling of such phenomena with other dissipative processes that have been studied. Once the theory has been developed, it will be applied to specific boundary value problems that have relevance to earthquake hazard mitigation.