Liquefaction Analysis of Soil Profile Underneath the Multi-storey Building

Soil liquefaction occurs due to the loss of shear strength of saturated cohesionless soil under the influence of vibrations caused by seismic or dynamic events. Soil liquefaction can cause lateral spreading, ground settlement and sand boiling. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the safety of the ground-supporting structures against soil liquefaction-induced ground damages. The present study focuses on liquefaction analysis of the soil profile underneath the multi-storey building structure due to the rise of pore pressure towards the foundation base. Modelling a multi-storey building is done using MIDAS GEN software. The analysis was conducted using the software MIDAS GTS NX and the nonlinear effective stress material model UBCSAND. The soil profile beneath the structure has been chosen with different soil layers, and the bottom of the soil profile is subjected to different PGA of seismic motion amplitudes. This study compares the liquefaction behaviour of a particular soil profile with and without a building structure subjected to seismic loading and also studies the behaviour of soil profile with the multi-storey building by varying the seismic and soil parameters. The results show that PGA, density and depth of liquefiable sand layer influence the liquefaction behaviour of the soil profile.