EERI San Diego Chapter Webinar Series
A NEW PROBABILISTIC COMMON-ORIGIN APPROACH TO ASSES LEVEL-GROUND LIQUEFACTION SUSCEPTIBILITY AND TRIGGERING IN ALL CPT-COMPATIBLE SOILS USING ΔQ AND ITS APPLICATION IN ENGINEERING DESIGN
Friday, June 11th, 2021
12:00pm-1:30pm PDT
Zoom
Abstract: Since the introduction of the Seed & Idriss simplified procedure in 1971, liquefaction triggering analysis for sands has continuously been expanded and refined. Questions of soil compositional susceptibility to liquefaction triggering were addressed using the “Chinese Criteria” for more than 20 years until observations by Bray and Sancio (2006) from the 1999 Kocaeli earthquake in Turkey revealed that some fine-grained clayey soils can also trigger in liquefaction. Therefore, considerable uncertainty today exists around the topics of liquefaction susceptibility and triggering of fine-grained and transitional soils. Using (1) a new method for quantifying soil type/behavior called DQ (Saye, Olson, et al. 2017); (2) a novel approach for considering the liquefaction triggering boundary that removes the need for fines content estimation and correction; and (3) an expanded database of 401 liquefaction/non-liquefaction case histories from a variety of soils ranging from clay to course sands, we (Saye, Olson, and Franke 2021) introduce new probabilistic and deterministic models of liquefaction susceptibility and triggering for ALL CPT-compatible soils. These newly-published models demonstrate excellent fit with many of the “tricky” case histories from recent events including Christchurch. Additionally, we (Franke and Olson 2021) identify and present two common design practices in the use of probabilistic liquefaction triggering models that are potentially introducing significant error in many projects. Practical solutions to these erroneous practices are proposed and summarized.
REGISTRATION
Click here to register for the webinar.
RECORDING
Click here to view a replay of the webinar.
SPEAKER
Kevin W. Franke, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT
Kevin W. Franke is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Brigham Young University. Kevin received his BSCE from Utah State University in 2004, is MSCE from University of Washington in 2005, and his Ph.D. from Brigham Young University in 2011. Kevin’s principal research focus relates to geotechnical/earthquake engineering. Kevin and his students are currently developing performance-based (i.e., probabilistic) methods for dealing with soil liquefaction and its associated hazards. Additionally, Kevin is an investigator in the Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (C-UAS), which is currently the only NSF-sponsored research center for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Kevin’s research focus in the Center deals with new and improved applications of small (UAVs) in monitoring infrastructure and performing post-disaster reconnaissance.
Prior to his current position at BYU, Kevin worked for 6 years as a professional civil engineering consultant for Kleinfelder, Inc. and URS Corporation. Kevin contributed to multiple significant projects throughout the western and central US including Kennecott Utah Copper tailings impoundment, facilities at Los Alamos National Labs, California High Speed Rail, North Torrey Pines Bridge seismic retrofit, I-15 Corridor Reconstruction in Utah County, Sacramento Area Flood Control Levee Evaluations/Improvements, Levee improvements in New Orleans, Roscoe Wind Farm in Texas, Legacy Parkway in Utah, and multiple schools and hospitals throughout CA, OR, and WA.
Kevin is married to Ruby since 2000, and they have 6 children: Shari (18), Chad (16), Abby (14), Julie (12), Russell (10), and Eve (8). They also have a successful family YouTube channel called “8 Passengers” that currently has nearly 2,500,000 subscribers and has received more than 1 billion views worldwide since 2015.
