The Effects of Vertical Stress on the Liquefaction Potential Originated from Buildings in The Urban Areas: A Case Study

Main purpose of this paper is to study the influence of vertical stress on soil liquefaction in urban areas. The literature provides limited information on vertical stress analysis of multiple footings, and, as a result, there is no accurate way to account for the effect of the foundation depth on liquefaction. Additionally, practical methods do not exist for considering the interaction between the neighboring foundations vertical stress and seismic forces in the urban area. Vertical stress distribution was calculated in examining the soil liquefaction potential exhibited by building foundations as a case study. The vertical stresses were chosen randomly for some buildings with foundation depths of 3.00 m; 4.50 and 6.00 m at the Burkent site (Burdur-Turkey). The influence of 5-storey buildings on the liquefaction potential of sandy soils was evaluated in terms of the safety factor (FS) against liquefaction along soil profile depths for different earthquakes. Standard Penetration Test (SPT) results were used based on simplified empirical procedure.