Seismic performance assessment of wall-type gravel and rubber drains in liquefaction mitigation of sands

Recent research in earthquake geotechnical engineering has experienced considerable development focusing mainly on the liquefaction mitigation measures applications. However, various conventional methods such as soil replacement, densification, and grouting, used for soil liquefaction mitigation are uneconomic, and environmentally unfriendly. This paper investigates the performance and application of wall-type gravel and rubber drains in liquefaction mitigation of Firoozkuh NO.161 sand by calculating the settlements, and induced excess pore water pressure (PWP) s using a series of 1 g shaking table tests. To this end, the number and width of walls, materials of drainage walls including gravel and rubber, input acceleration, and also soil relative density was changed and studied. The obtained results showed that increasing the width and number of the wall-type gravel and rubber drains in the liquefiable sand reduces the settlement and liquefaction-induced deformations, as well as the excess PWP and eventually increases the sand liquefaction resistance. Moreover, it was observed that at high input acceleration and relative density of 30%, the seismic performance of reinforced sand with rubber wall-type drain is slightly better than that with gravel wall-type drain.

Automated summary

This paper investigates the performance and application of wall-type gravel and rubber drains in liquefaction mitigation. The results show that increasing the width and number of the drains can reduce settlement and liquefaction-induced deformations, as well as excess pore water pressure, improving the sand's resistance to liquefaction.