Advanced Constitutive Modelling of Soils for Characterization of Seismic Hazard through Nonlinear Dynamic Simulations

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The geological conditions in Eastern Canada make the assessment of seismic hazard challenging. Soft soil layers, such as sensitive clays, atop the bedrock can develop large strains, significantly amplify ground motion, and cause the motion to propagate much further than other geological settings. For example, in the 1988 Saguenay earthquake, the Montreal-Est Hotel de Ville was damaged and had to be torn down despite being situated 300km away from the earthquake’s epicenter. The clay layer beneath the building was 17m thick, which was assessed to be the main cause of the building’s demise. The seismic waves can also cause seismically induced landslides in sensitive clays because they are susceptible to cyclic softening, which is characterized by a loss of stiffness induced by cyclic loading.