Abstract
Longitudinal tension cracks have been often observed at the crest and slopes of soil embankments after earthquakes. Since the cracks affect the stability of embankments, understanding the physical mechanisms of the crack generation is an important issue. In this study, the dynamic behavior of embankments on a liquefied ground is investigated from centrifuge model tests. Video image analysis suggests that the main body of the embankment is deformed to stretch evenly horizontally due to the liquefaction and lateral spreading of the foundation ground, which is the first finding revealed by this study. Although the horizontal strain is almost equal at the top and bottom of the embankment, tension cracks occur only at the top. This can be simply explained by the fact that tensile failure precedes shear failure where the vertical stress is low, which means that it is readily applicable in practice.
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