Characteristics of liquefaction induced by single shallow-buried detonation in saturated sand

The practical problems of blasting landslide dams or water retaining dams may involve a subject of shallow-buried explosions in saturated soils. However, the studies on dynamic pore water pressure and liquefaction induced by a single shallow-buried detonation are rarely found in open technical literatures. A series of single shallow-buried detonation field tests in saturated sand are conducted to study the characteristics of the excess pore water pressure and the influences of charge mass, buried depth and distance on the generation of pore water pressure. Then the empirical prediction methods based on fully-contained detonations are evaluated. And a modified empirical model with respect to scaled distance and scaled buried depth is proposed to predict the excess pore water pressure or liquefaction based upon the evaluations. A group of experimental data from Treasure Island liquefaction tests are used to validate the modified empirical model. The results show that the modified empirical model can describe the buried depth on the generation of pore water pressure. Meanwhile, it can be utilized to accurately evaluate and predict the liquefaction degree or range. The results can be used as a supplement and improvement to the empirical methods for predicting the liquefaction produced by fully-contained detonations in saturated soils.