Level Ground Soil‐Liquefaction Analysis Using in Situ Properties: I

Abstract

Based on Maxwell's pioneering work, on the electrical conduction through heterogeneous media a fundamental approach utilizing the electrical properties of soils to characterize their grain (particle shape) and aggregate (porosity and fabric anisotropy) characteristics is presented. Correlations between mechanical properties relevant to the analysis of soil liquefaction and electrical indices defining the structure of a soil are given, and the influence of fabric anisotropy on mechanical behavior of soils is demonstrated. The nondestructive nature of the proposed method provides a means to predict in situ properties and thus overcome the difficulty of retrieving undisturbed samples. Level ground soil‐liquefaction analysis, which considers the pore pressure generation and dissipation during and after an earthquake, utilizing the method presented herein to obtain the necessary input properties, is presented in a companion paper (Arulanandan and Muraleetharan 1988).