An Energy-Based Method For Static Liquefaction Assessment
Abstract
Static liquefaction has caused the failure of many large, earthen structures, including the recent Feijão and Fundão tailings dam failures in Brazil. This thesis focused on developing an energy-based static liquefaction triggering method.
The energy capacity of various soils was calculated from triaxial and direct simple shear data. Relationships between energy capacity (Ec) and void ratio, state parameter, fines content, gravel content, shear wave velocity, normalized cone tip resistance, and preconsolidation stress were established. The effects of preparation method, shearing mode, stress path, principal stress direction, and intermediate principal stress were also investigated. Finite element models of the Feijão and Fundão dams were created to calculate the energy present during failure (Ea). Triggering was identified by comparing Ec and Ea. From these analyses, the displacement and time until instability of the two dams was further calculated.