The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Settlement and liquefaction of sands under multi-directional shaking

Pyke, Robert M.; Chan, Clarence K.; Seed, H. Bolton

UCB/EERC-74/02, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1974-02, 46 pages (495/P93/1974)

A double shaking table arrangement capable of producing three-dimensional motion has been developed and used to compare the settlements of dry sand caused by multidirectional as opposed to unidirectional shaking. It was found that the settlements caused by combined horizontal motions were approximately equal to the sum of the settlements caused by the components acting separately. While vertical accelerations less than 1 g caused no settlement if acting alone, vertical accelerations superimposed on horizontal motion further increased the settlements. However, because the stress-settlement relationship is nonlinear, the shear stresses that caused a given amount of settlement, or that would cause liquefaction in a given number of cycles, were only about 20 percent less for multidimensional shaking than for shaking in one direction only.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-74-02.pdf (11 MB)