Effect of earthquake ground motions on soil liquefaction

During the 2011 off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Earthquake, which was the largest earthquake in Japanese history, the soil liquefaction phenomenon was observed over a wide area along the Pacific Coast in Tohoku and in Kanto, including the Tokyo Bay area. Extensive damage was caused by the effect of soil liquefaction to residential lands and houses, as well as to infrastructures, such as roads, rivers, ports, and water supply/sewage systems. Since the 2011 off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Earthquake occurred in a megasize fault zone, with an area of 500 km × 200 km, the duration of the strong shaking was extremely long compared to that in the data recorded for past earthquakes. Clarifying the effect of the characteristics of the ground motion on the soil liquefaction mechanism is one of the essential studies to be conducted, and effective countermeasures for the damaged structures need to be found. This paper presents the strong motion observation data obtained on the liquefied and the non-liquefied grounds and raises preliminary discussions on the mechanism of soil liquefaction based on this data. The effect of the duration and the number of cyclic loadings on the progress of the soil liquefaction phenomenon is also compared with that found in past strong motion data.