Addressing the Needs and Challenges in Evaluating Liquefaction: A Survey of the State of Practice

This paper presents results from a survey investigating the current state of practice in liquefaction evaluations. Practitioners completed the survey during presentations of a Next Generation Liquefaction modeling team at local professional society chapters. The survey contained questions on topics within four general categories: site characterization, methods for liquefaction evaluation, approaches to layered and profile-based analyses, and general background information about the survey respondent. Key findings are that (1) practitioners use a wide mix of different site investigation techniques to evaluate liquefaction, (2) most practitioners in at least some of their projects apply a depth cutoff below which they do not consider liquefaction, (3) few practitioners modify cone penetration test data based on findings from collocated borings, and (4) a significant majority apply liquefaction procedures to every layer in the profile rather than identifying and analyzing a critical layer in the profile.