Sneha Upadhyaya, Ph.D., S.M.ASCE (California) coauthored an article entitled "Selecting the Optimal Factor of Safety or Probability of Liquefaction Triggering for Engineering Projects Based on Misprediction Costs" for publication in the Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering on March 17, 2021.

Sneha's coauthors were Brett Maurer, University of Washington; Russell Green, and Adrian Rodriguez-Marek, Virginia Tech.

Sneha Upadhyaya is a Senior Staff Professional based in California with experience focused on geotechnical engineering and geotechnical earthquake engineering. She has extensive experience in liquefaction, structural analysis, and foundation and seismic design.

The Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering covers the broad area of practice known as geotechnical engineering. Papers are welcomed on topics such as foundations, retaining structures, soil dynamics, engineering behavior of soil and rock, site characterization, slope stability, dams, rock engineering, earthquake engineering, environmental geotechnics, geosynthetics, computer modeling, groundwater monitoring and restoration, and coastal and geotechnical ocean engineering. Authors are also encouraged to submit papers on new and emerging topics within the general discipline of geotechnical engineering. Theoretical papers are welcomed, but there should be a clear and significant potential for practical application of the theory. Practice-oriented papers and case studies are particularly welcomed and encouraged.

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) represents more than 150,000 members of the civil engineering profession in 177 countries. Founded in 1852, ASCE is the nation's oldest engineering society. ASCE stands at the forefront of a profession that plans, designs, constructs, and operates society's economic and social engine – the built environment – while protecting and restoring the natural environment.

Abstract

In deterministic evaluations, liquefaction triggering potential is assessed by comparing the computed factor-of-safety (FS) against liquefaction triggering to some minimal acceptable FS. While some guidelines are available for selecting the minimal acceptable FS, there is no standard value. Herein, Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analyses are used to develop an approach for selecting the optimal minimal acceptable FS (i.e., optimal FS) for a project based on the relative costs of mispredictions. Utilizing different liquefaction triggering models and their associated case-history databases, relationships are established between the optimal FS and the ratio of the cost of a false-positive prediction to the cost of a false-negative prediction (i.e., cost ratio, CR). Also, by combining the FS data from different models, a "generic" FS-CR relationship is developed that "averages out" the degree of conservatism inherent to the individual triggering models. Similarly, relationships relating the optimal probability of liquefaction triggering (PL) to CR are developed for the probabilistic variants of the triggering models, as well as a generic PL-CR curve.

More Information

About the article: https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)GT.1943-5606.0002511
About Publication: https://ascelibrary.org/journal/jggefk
For consultation regarding liquefaction triggering, contact Sneha at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Learn more about Sneha: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sneha-upadhyaya-vt19/