Development Towards Performance-Based Design of Geotechnical Structures Subject to Seismic Action

There is a strong emphasis in the recent times that seismic design of geotechnical structures should be based upon their performance during earthquakes. This situation is related with the public demand for cost effectiveness as well as desire for accurate information on extent of safety. To cope with this, many efforts are currently being done at many places in the world. The present text addresses the author’s attempt to introduce the idea of life cycle cost principle and to predict performance of liquefaction mitigation measures. For the success of those attempts, it is obviously important to understand the seismic behavior of geotechnical structures. In this regard, recent developments of model testing are introduced such as a large shaking table test and field blasting.

Keywords:

performance-based design , life cycle cost , liquefaction , shaking table , fieldblasting