Development of Liquefaction Susceptibility Maps for Vishakhapatnam (India)

Abstract

Historic earthquakes followed by liquefaction failures are familiar and are being studied since the past years [1, 2, 3]. Development of liquefaction susceptibility maps is considered to be prominent as most of the damages during past earthquakes are confirmed to be due to liquefaction phenomenon. In the present study, Liquefaction Severity Index (LSI) and Liquefaction Potential Index (LPI) are used for developing susceptibility maps. LSI and LPI are used to examine the performance of the soil under seismic excitation. In this paper, an attempt has been made to construct response spectrum for the site from the results of earthquake hazard assessment provided by Putti and Satyam (in response analysis and liquefaction hazard assessment for Vishakhapatnamcity. Innov Infrastruct Solut 3:12, [4]). Based on the maximum credible earthquake intensity from the site-specific response spectra Bhuj earthquake strong motion data has been scaled to 0.1 g and is used as an input ground motion for response analysis and liquefaction assessment. The outcomes of the present study suggest that some of the sites in the study area are prone to medium liquefaction probability where silty sands and marine clays with high silt content are found to be predominant. The peak ground accelerations (PGA) are observed to be varying from as low as 0.6–0.14 g. As the study area Vishakhapatnam (India) is the financial capital of Andhra Pradesh state as well as the rapidly growing industrial area, the PGA, LPI and LSI hazard maps are further helpful for infrastructure development and solving future engineering problems in the study area. © 2023, Indian Society of Earthquake Technology.