The Liquefied Behavior of a Sand Lense Group Embedded in a Clay Deposit   S.M. Mir Mohammad Hosseini Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran Amin Eisazadeh M. Sc. in Geotechnical Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
			ABSTRACT

Earthquake induced liquefaction in saturated granular soils is an important phenomenon which has been under intensive investigation in the past three decades. In coastal areas, despite the fact that top layers of clay and silt deposit have proper static and dynamic strength properties, appreciable amount of settlements have been observed during earthquakes. The investigations conducted in these fields have shown that the major cause of these destructions is the liquefaction of thin discontinuous layers of sand, which are known as sand lenses. In this paper, the liquefied behavior of three loose and saturated sand lenses embedded inside a clay deposit have been modeled by using the FDM method. Finally the impact of sand lens effective zone on the settlement of surrounding soils were investigated. The results indicated that by doubling the ratio of sand lens distance to its length and hence reaching its effective zone, each sand lens behaves independently of other lenses buried in the clay deposit.

Keywords: Dynamic Loading, Liquefaction, Sand Lense groups, Effective Zone

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