ASDSO Dam Safety Toolbox

On-Demand Webinar : Understanding Static Liquefaction

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Revision as of 21:14, 27 May 2024 by [email protected] (talk | contribs) (Created page with "{{Trainings Template |author= <!-- Add author/publisher below--> Association of State Dam Safety Officials |year= <!-- Add publication year --> 2023 |abstract= <!-- Add presentation summary--> Static liquefaction is the brittle loss of strength in loose, saturated, nonplastic or low plasticity soil under monotonic loading (i.e., static rather than dynamic). Research has conclusively demonstrated that, if static liquefaction is triggered, loose nonplastic soils can mo...")
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Association of State Dam Safety Officials, 2023



Static liquefaction is the brittle loss of strength in loose, saturated, nonplastic or low plasticity soil under monotonic loading (i.e., static rather than dynamic). Research has conclusively demonstrated that, if static liquefaction is triggered, loose nonplastic soils can mobilize undrained shear strengths significantly less than the strengths associated with conventional drained effective stress strength parameters.

Although static liquefaction has been studied for decades, it remains a phenomenon not well-understood in the dam safety community, and it is rarely evaluated for water storage dams. In the mining industry, the risks of static liquefaction for tailings impoundments have become more widely recognized, particularly after static liquefaction was cited as a likely root cause for the Brumadinho Dam failure in 2019. More recently, static liquefaction was cited as the cause of the May 2020 failure of Edenville Dam, MI – a hydroelectric dam. It is not widely known that static liquefaction was previously cited as the root cause for failures of multiple water storage dams, including Wachusett Dam (1907), Calaveras Dam (1918), and Fort Peck Dam (1938). Static liquefaction is a particularly dangerous potential failure mode because it can occur very quickly with little or no warning signs.

This webinar will include discussion of the principles and mechanisms of static liquefaction, case histories of static liquefaction, methods for investigation and analysis of static liquefaction potential, and thoughts on how this potential failure mode can be addressed by the dam safety industry.

Key Takeaways:

1. An understanding of the stress-strain behavior required for static liquefaction.

2. An understanding of notable case histories of static liquefaction.

3. An understanding of how to identify soils susceptible to static liquefaction.

4. An understanding of how to analyze the potential for static liquefaction failure.

5. An understanding of current thoughts on possible approaches to address the static liquefaction potential failure mode.

Access Training Here

Speaker(s): John France


Revision ID: 7879
Revision Date: 05/27/2024