Liquefaction susceptibility criterion of fine grained soil

Liquefaction is one of the most devastating effects caused due to earthquake. Earlier it was believed that only clean sands are prone to liquefaction and the sands with fines content resist liquefaction. However, several field evidences showed that sand with fines can also liquefy when subjected to ground motion. The original Chinese criterion followed by several approaches developed thereafter are being used to assess liquefaction potential for such soils. However; most of these criteria are data-specific. The present paper proposes a criterion which takes into account the most significant liquefaction parameters to assess possibility of liquefaction. This criterion when applied on the diversified database for 194 cases of liquefied sites of Turkey (1999), Chi-chi (1999) and Loma-Prieta (1989) earth-quakes, resulted in 83% success rate.