LAUSR

Abstract In offshore areas, the silty soil seabed can be liquefied under cyclic wave loads, and the liquefied soil fluctuates with the upper water body with the same period. Similar to the movement of water, the fluctuation orbit of liquefied soil particles is elliptical with a horizontal major axis, and the orbit radius gradually decreases with depth. Although some researchers have constructed theories to describe the fluctuation of liquefied soils, no corresponding data have been verified in wave flume tests on silty soils under visual conditions. In this paper, the particle trajectory of liquefied soil is observed to be elliptical under the condition of small-amplitude waves in shallow water by wave flume tests. The vertical displacement of liquefied soil particle motion is measured by the falling ball method, which provides validation data for the theoretical calculation results. In addition, the results of the double-layer fluid wave theory are compared with the experimental data. For engineering applications, an analytical solution for particle motion and the displacement of liquefied silty soil under wave action is given by using the small-amplitude wave theory and the method of setting a reference surface of fluid wave depth. The vertical displacement of liquefied soil particles calculated by the analytical solution is smaller than that calculated by the double-layer fluid wave theory and larger than that calculated from the experimental results.