Field Investigation and Liquefaction Evaluation after Meinong Earthquake

Field Investigation and Liquefaction Evaluation after Meinong Earthquake

On 6 February 2015, a local magnitude(ML) 6.6 earthquake struck southern Taiwan, causing devastation in the Tainan area. Several buildings in this area were damaged by soil liquefaction. It is of interest that soil liquefaction was triggered by such a moderate magnitude earthquake. To better understand the liquefaction characteristic of the damaged area, several common simplified methods together with the information provided by six Standard Penetration Test(SPT) boreholes and five Cone Penetration Test(CPT) soundings were used to calculate the factor of safety(FS) and the liquefaction potential index(LPI) of the site when subject to the Meinong earthquake. The uncertainty of the peak ground acceleration(PGA) due to the variation caused by the seismic site effects of the studied sites and the lack of seismic stations close to the sites was also discussed. The liquefaction evaluation results combined with the soil characteristics were used to explain the failure mechanism of the observed damaged buildings.