Stress-density model validation: Free-field liquefaction analysis

Abstract

Liquefaction has caused severe damage to buildings and infrastructure during numerous earthquakes, leading researchers to develop constitutive models that can capture complex soil behaviour in liquefaction-induced phenomena. Constitutive models require validation against laboratory or real-world data to assess their capability. This paper first discusses the recent implementation of the stress-density (S-D) model in the OpenSees finite element platform. Subsequently, calibration and validation phases evaluate the performance of the S-D model against two previously conducted centrifuge tests. Single-element simulations of cyclic simple shear tests inform the parameter calibration for the Nevada sand, which comprises the two main layers in the centrifuge tests. The validation phase consists of eight 1-D site response analyses in OpenSees compared to the centrifuge tests in terms of accelerations, spectral accelerations, pore water pressures, and settlements. The current study shows that the model reasonably predicts the soil behaviour in terms of acceleration and pore water pressure, particularly in the liquefiable layer.