COMPARATIVE STUDY OF LIQUEFACTION POTENTIAL ASSESSMENT METHODS USING IN SITU SPT AND CPT TESTS APPLIED TO THE AL HOCEIMA AREA IN NORTHERN MOROCCO

Assessing the liquefaction potential of soils is an important and challenging issue in many geotechnical fields in earthquake-prone regions. Predicting soil liquefaction potential is an important step to reduce seismic risk. Several methods have been developed for the estimation of resistance to liquefaction. The most widely used method is based on the results of in situ tests developed on the basis of other in situ and laboratory tests. In January 1996, a workshop on liquefaction issues was organized by the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (NCEER); the recommendations of this workshop are followed currently. This article presents a comparative study of the methods for evaluating the liquefaction potential based on the experimental results of the in situ SPT and CPT tests, applied to an earthquake-prone area in northern Morocco. The analysis of existing CPT and SPT data leads to interesting conclusions both in terms of the comparative analysis of methods and the understanding of the behavior of soils under seismic stresses. Our research goals are to determine the viability of the methods used to determine liquefaction potentials and provide an honest comparison of all those methods to determine the most optimal one, along with the safety factor calculations that were conducted to determine whether soil under study is potentially liquefiable or not. Thus, we will be able to choose the treatment formula we will use to enhance the soil characteristics and optimize its dimensions for our use case. Keywords: Liquefaction, Potential, Standard Penetration Testing, Cone Penetration Testing, Susceptibility DOI： https://doi.org/10.35741/issn.0258-2724.58.4.99