Earthquake induced liquefaction occurs when seismic activity causes saturated soils to lose their strength and stability. Liquefaction can lead to structural failures of critical facilities, including nuclear power and petrochemical plants, dams and industrial facilities, highway infrastructure, and commercial and residential buildings. These failures result in substantial property damage and even loss of life. The Next-Generation Liquefaction (NGL) Consortium combines community-based case history data collection with new liquefaction modeling to develop consensus-based probabilistic solutions to predict liquefaction triggering and related consequences.
Consortium Objectives
The NGL consortium will develop a new database of field liquefaction data and observations based on case histories from around the world. In addition, the consortium will:
- Support research activities and obtain key data to support model development, including laboratory, model testing, analytical studies, and modeling activities directed toward probabilistic assessment of liquefaction susceptibility.
- Provide guidance to overcome variability and uncertainty associated with predicting liquefaction susceptibility, triggering, and effects.
- Conduct structured workshops with experts to capture the technically defensible interpretation of field data, develop a range of semi-empirical liquefaction models, and disseminate progress and results.
Consortium Membership
The NGL consortium began as a collaboration of research organizations affiliated with the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) and now includes Southwest Research Institute’s Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses (CNWRA), the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UCLA, and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Membership is open to industry and regulatory stakeholders with an interest in earthquake-induced liquefaction. To inquire about membership, contact Dr. John Stamatakos at SwRI or Dr. Jonathan Stewart at UCLA.