Numerical prediction of liquefied ground characteristics from back-analysis of lateral spreading centrifuge experiments

In this paper, liquefied and laterally spreading soils triggered by seismic shaking are modeled as viscoplastic Bingham media characterized by two rheological parameters: the undrained residual shear strength and the Bingham viscosity coefficient. Since the precise evaluation of these two characteristics directly by appropriate in situ or laboratory experimental tests remains a very difficult task, an identification procedure is developed to assign numerically realistic values to both rheological characteristics from back-calculation of liquefaction-induced lateral spreading using centrifuge experiments. The proposed numerical procedure is applied successfully to two series of reported centrifuge tests where lateral displacements data during shaking were available.