Downslope ground movements during liquefaction-induced lateral spreading in centrifuge testing

Downslope displacements resulting from lateral spreading during fourteen centrifuge tests performed at the NEES facility at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) are summarized. The centrifuge tests were conducted to model lateral spreading of a gently sloping soil profile, triggered by an earthquake, with several configurations and features (such as the presence of a large, rigid foundation element and/or a "deflection wall") in the path of downslope soil movement. The lateral displacements in the free-field area of each test (measured on the container laminar rings) are presented for all test configurations and compared with several existing empirical and semi-empirical approaches to estimate lateral spreading displacements. In general, the Newmark (1965) sliding-block approach with liquefied shear strength ratios yielded the most reasonable estimates of measured displacements.