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A SIMPLIFIED MODEL FOR PORE PRESSURE

BUILD-UP PREDICTION IN 1D SEISMIC
RESPONSE ANALYSIS

Conference Paper October 2017

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 EASEC-15 October 11-13, 2017, Xian, China

A SIMPLIFIED MODEL FOR PORE PRESSURE BUILD-UP PREDICTION

IN 1D SEISMIC RESPONSE ANALYSIS

Anna Chiaradonna1, Giuseppe Tropeano2, Anna dOnofrio1 and Francesco Silvestri1

1
Department of Civil Architectural and Environmental Engineering, University of Napoli
Federico II, Italy
2
Department of Civil, Environmental Engineering and Architecture, University of Cagliari,
Cagliari, Italy

ABSTRACT
The importance of predictions of earthquake-induced pore water pressure has been widely
recognized for reliable evaluations of strong-motion response of saturated soil. The build-up of
excess pore water pressure, in fact, causes reduction in soil stiffness and strength, in some cases
leading to liquefaction. Simplified predictive models in the literature are empirically based on the
results of cyclic laboratory tests carried out in strain- or stress-controlled conditions. Most of such
empirical models require, preliminarily, that the irregular earthquake load is reduced to an
equivalent number of cycles of uniform shear stress, in order to reproduce the effect of a laboratory
cyclic test. To avoid such conversion, rather complex and not always reliable, a stress-based model
is here proposed that allows for the direct generalization of the cyclic test data to irregular stress
histories. This build-up model has been incorporated in a program for 1D seismic response analyses
in the time domain, in order to carry out coupled dynamic analyses in terms of effective stress. In
this paper, after a brief recall of the proposed pore water pressure model, the code performance will
be shown with reference to an ideal soil profile of loose saturated sand in totally undrained
condition.

Keywords: liquefaction, excess pore water pressure, seismic soil response, 1D dynamic analysis.

1. INTRODUCTION
Earthquakes induce excess pore water pressure build-up in saturated soils, causing reduction in
stiffness and strength, in some cases until liquefaction. Thus, the numerical prediction of excess
pore water pressure is important for a reliable evaluation of strong-motion response of sandy
deposits.

Simplified semi-empirical models for the prediction of pore water pressure build-up require
converting the earthquake motion into an equivalent number of cycles of uniform shear stress. The
latter, in principle, should produce the same pore pressure build-up expected at the site. A wide
range of conversion procedures is available for evaluating the equivalent number of cycles (Seed et
al., 1975; Annaki & Lee, 1977; Biondi, 2002; Green & Terri, 2005). However, the results of these

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 EASEC-15 October 11-13, 2017, Xian, China

procedures strictly depend on the conversion curve adopted and on the techniques for choosing and
counting the stress cycles that significantly affect the pore pressure generation (Biondi et al., 2012).
To bypass such conversion procedures, Park et al. (2015) presented a stress-based model working
with a single variable, called damage parameter, which can be computed on both cyclic test data
and irregular stress histories. This model can be applied to carry out dynamic response analyses of
saturated sand deposits by removing the need for evaluating equivalent uniform stress cycles. This
approach has been implemented in the numerical code SCOSSA (Tropeano et al., 2016), in order to
carry out one-dimensional dynamic analyses in effective stresses.

In this paper, the formulation of the simplified model for generation of excess pore pressure
build-up and the implementation in the code SCOSSA is briefly recalled. The code performance
will be shown with reference to an ideal soil profile of loose saturated sand for different non-linear
soil behaviour.

2. SIMPLIFIED PORE WATER PRESSURE MODEL

The proposed pore water pressure model permits to compare the irregular time-history of shear
stress induced by earthquake with the soil liquefaction resistance, evaluated in stress-controlled
cyclic laboratory tests. The comparison is expressed through the so called damage parameter,
which can be computed for any loading pattern. The damage parameter, , is an incremental
function of the applied load that takes into account the cyclic strength of the soil (Park et al., 2014).
This latter is expressed in terms of cyclic resistance curve, analytically described by the following
equation (Park & Ahn, 2013):

CSR CSRt Nr 1/
CSRr CSRt N
(1)

where CSR is the shear stress amplitude normalized either by the mean effective confining pressure
in a cyclic triaxial test or by the effective vertical stress in a simple shear test; N is the number of
cycles, Nr, CSRr are the cordinate of the curve for a reference point (usually 15 cycles are adopted
as a reference number of cycles). The parameters and CSRt respectively describe the steepness
and the horizontal asymptote of the curve, as shown in Figure 1a.

The damage function, , increases when CSR overcomes CSRt, which represents the threshold
below which there is no pore pressure build-up. It assumes the following expression for a uniform
cyclic stress history:

4 N CSR CSRt

(2)

Substituting equation (1) into equation (2), it is possible to compute the maximum value of the
damage parameter at liquefaction, L:

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 EASEC-15 October 11-13, 2017, Xian, China

L 4 N r CSRr CSRt

(3)

which can be considered a synthetic expression of the liquefaction potential of the soils, since it
depends on the parameters that define the cyclic resistance curve.

For a regular shear stress history, is proportional to the number of cycles, N; it is therefore
possible to express the pore pressure ratio, ru (excess pore pressure normalized by the initial
effective confining pressure), as a function of the damage parameter, through the relationship
proposed by the authors (Chiaradonna et al., 2016):

b d

ru a c (4)
L L

where a, b, c and d are parameters that control the shape of the curve, which can be easily obtained
by best-fitting the data measured in cyclic laboratory tests (Figure 1b). Equation (4) is used to
compute the generated excess pore pressure in perfectly undrained conditions.

Table 1 reports the numerical values of pore pressure parameters for the sand reported in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Cyclic resistance (a) and pore pressure ratio (b) curves for Crystal Silica sand.

Table 1: Pore water pressure parameters

CSRt CSRr a b c d

2.1133 0.2296 0.3262 0.5774 0.4212 0.3726 4.0

The pore water pressure model was implemented in the non-linear code SCOSSA (Tropeano et al.,
2016) which models the soil profile as a system of consistent lumped masses, connected by viscous
dampers and springs with hysteretic behaviour. The non-linear shear stress-strain relationship is

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 EASEC-15 October 11-13, 2017, Xian, China

described by the MKZ model (Matasovic & Vucetic, 1993) and the modified Masing rules (Phillips
& Hashash, 2009).

The performance of the 1D non-linear code have been validated in total (Regnier et al., 2016) and
effective stress analysis (Chiaradonna, 2016).

In effective stress analysis, the proposed pore water pressure model was implemented into SCOSSA
code so that the generation of excess pore pressure in soils yields a reduction of soil stiffness, which
was taken into account adopting the modulus degradation model for cohesionless soils proposed by
Matasovic & Vucetic (1993).

3. PERFORMANCE ON A UNIFORM SOIL LAYER

The performance of the code is shown on a simple scheme; a uniform 20 m thick layer of Crystal
Silica sand is subjected to a reference motion (Figure 2).

The reference motion is NS component of the mainshock of Umbria-Marche seismic sequence

(26/09/1997, Mw = 6), recorded at the Assisi station (ASS, Figure 2c), which has maximum
acceleration of 0.273 g. The input is applied as an outcrop motion at the bedrock, which is modelled
as deformable with properties reported in Figure 2a.

For simplicity, the shear wave velocity is supposed constant with the depth (Figure 2a) and the
non-linear and dissipative behaviour of the soil are modelled adopting the normalized stiffness,
G/G0 and damping, D, curves proposed by Seed and Idriss (1970) for sand (Figure 2b).
VS [m/s]
0 200 400 600 800 1000
0 1 40
(a) (b)
0.8
30
0.6
D [%]
G/G0

Seed&Idriss(1970) 20
0.4 upper
5
mean
10
0.2 lower

Crystal 0 0
Silica
sand 0.0001 0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10
= 19.3 kN/m3 [%]
10
D0=0.38%
0.3
(c)
z [m]

0.2

0.1
15
a [g]

-0.1

-0.2
PGA = 0.273 g
20 -0.3
Bedrock
=22 kN/m3 0 10 t [s] 20 30

Figure 2: Soil model and VS profile (a), normalized stiffness and damping curves (b) and input
motion (c).

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 EASEC-15 October 11-13, 2017, Xian, China

Silver and Park (1976) reported the main properties of Crystal Silica sand n.20 (Table 2), and the
experimental data from cyclic triaxial tests which have been used to calibrate the PWP model
(Figure 1). The pore pressure ratio curve, ru N/NL, was compared also with the Booker et al. (1976)
relationship (Figure 1b). Table 2 reports the numerical values of PWP parameters.

The porosity (n=0.436) and the unit weight of the saturated soil (=19.3 kN/m3) have been
computed from maximum and minimum void ratio, known that the tested sand has a relative density
of 60%.

Table 1: Physical properties of Crystal Silica sand n.20 (Silver and Park, 1976)

GS D10 (mm) D50 (mm) D90 (mm) emax emin

2.65 0.51 0.65 0.82 0.97 0.64

Effective stress analysis has been carried out considering the upper, mean and lower curves of Seed
and Idriss (1970), displayed in Figure 2b. The results of the analyses in terms of vertical profiles are
compared in Figure 3.
amax [g] max [%] max [kPa] ru [-]
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0 0.4 0.8 1.2 0 10 20 30 40 50 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
0
(a) (b) (c) (d)

Crystal
Silica
sand
= 19.3 kN/m3
10 D0=0.38%
z [m]

15

upper
mean
lower
Bedrock
20

Figure 3: Effective stress analyses for upper, mean and lower curves of Seed and Idriss (1970).
The most non-linear soil (lower bound curves) shows the lowest excess pore pressure since the
stiffness of the soil quickly degrades and the related shear stresses become lower than the threshold
shear stress ratio, CSRt. Conversely, the most linear soil (upper bound) generates the highest excess

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 EASEC-15 October 11-13, 2017, Xian, China

pore pressure. As expected, an intermediate behaviour is observed for the mean normalized shear
modulus curve (Figure 3d). The different non linearity affects also the corresponding maximum
shear stress and strain profiles (Figure 3b-c); the peak shear strain, observed for the upper bound
G/G0 curve, is due to the accumulation of plastic shear strains induced by the numerical instability
of the simulated - cycles.

4. CONCLUSIONS
A simplified model for generation and dissipation of excess pore water pressure has been presented,
based on the results of cyclic stress-controlled laboratory tests. The main advantage of this approach
is the possibility to simulate the development of excess pore water pressures under irregular cyclic
loading. The key objective of the pore water pressure model is to accurately simulate the
experimental liquefaction resistance curve. The high sensibility of the results to the threshold shear
stress ratio (Chiaradonna, 2016) requires that this value has to be assessed carefully. An indirect
estimation can be obtained if the stiffness decay and the threshold volumetric strain are known from
pre-failure cyclic/dynamic laboratory tests. The other model parameters can be calibrated
straightforward through a non-linear regression analysis of the data from cyclic liquefaction tests,
avoiding trial and error procedures.

This model has been implemented in the numerical code SCOSSA (Tropeano et al., 2016), in order
to carry out one-dimensional dynamic analyses in effective stresses. The code performance has been
shown with reference to an ideal soil profile of loose saturated sand for different non-linear soil
behaviour. The results of the analyses confirm the primary role of the normalized stiffness curves in
predicting the non-linear seismic response of soils, being equal the pore pressure parameters.

5. REFERENCES
Annaki M., Lee K. L. (1977). Equivalent uniform cycle concept for soil dynamics. Journal of the
Geotechnical Engineering Division, ASCE. 103 (GT6): 549-564.
Bindi D, Pacor F, Luzi L, Puglia R, Massa M, Ameri G and Paolucci R. (2011). Ground motion
prediction equations derived from the Italian strong motion database. Bull Earthquake Eng
2011; 9 (6): 18991920. ITACA 1.1, ITalian ACcelerometric Archive (1972-2011) version 1.1,
http://itaca.mi.ingv.it/ItacaNet/.
Biondi G, Cascone E, Di Filippo G. (2012) Affidabilit di alcune correlazioni empiriche per la
stime del numero di cicli di carico equivalente. Italian Geotechnical Journal 2012; 2: 11-41.
Booker JR, Rahman MS, Seed HB. (1976). GADFLEA- A computer program for the analysis of
pore pressure generation and dissipation during cyclic or earthquake loading. Earthquake
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Engineering, University of Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy.
Dobry R, Pierce WG, Dyvik R, Thomas GE, Ladd RS. (1985). Pore pressure model for cyclic
straining of sand. Earthquake. Civil Engineering Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,
Troy, NY.

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Gingery JR, Elgamal A. (2013). Shear stress-strain curves based on the G/Gmax logic: A procedure
for strength compatibility. The 2nd International Conference on Geotechnical and Earthquake
Engineering, Chengdu, China.
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Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, ASCE 2005; 131 (4): 477-488.
Matasovic N, Vucetic M. (1993). Cyclic characterization of liquefiable sands. Journal of
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Park T, Park D, Ahn JK. (2014). Pore pressure model based on accumulated stress. Bulletin of
Earthquake Engineering 2014; DOI 10.1007/s10518-014-9702-1.
Park T, Ahn JK. (2013). Accumulated stress based model for prediction of residual pore pressure.
Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical
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Phillips C, Hashash YMA. (2009). Damping formulation for non linear 1D site response analyses.
Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering. 29 (7): 1143-1158.
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1D seismic response analysis including shear strength of soils, Gotechnique 66: 95-105.

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