Soil liquefaction studies at Mumbai city

Mumbai city is the economical capital of India and is situated about midway on the western coast of stable continental region of Peninsular India. Major part of the city being of reclaimed land, the soil type is of alluvium, sand, and recent conglomerate. There are some bigger water bodies within the city range. In this study, an attempt has been made to study the susceptibility of soil liquefaction using simplified empirical procedure based on number of blow counts (N values) of the soil layers from standard penetration test. The liquefaction susceptibility is quantified in terms of factor of safety along the borehole depths at available borehole locations using earthquake-induced cyclic stress on the soil and the cyclic resistance of the soil to withstand the load. The factor of safety against liquefaction is evaluated at different sites for two peak ground acceleration (PGA) levels pertaining to 10 and 2?% probability of exceedance in 50?years corresponding to uniform hazard response spectra for Mumbai city with 475- and 2,475-year return period, respectively. Contour maps are prepared that display the factor of safety at different depths for earthquake magnitude of M _w 6.5. These contour maps show the liquefaction vulnerability at different sites in the city.