Liquefaction Prevention

The potential problem with most of the airports are liquefiable fill typically on bay mud.  Ports and harbors are also often built on artificial fill which amplifies earthquake shaking.  Ports consist of bulk storage facilities and warehouses, cranes to move large containers, and rail and other facilities that serve to connect the port to the land-side transportation system.  Liquefaction can cause large areas to sink below the water surface. Rails can buckle, become misaligned, and rotate.  Pavement surfaces also buckle, often in ways similar to roadways and airport runways. 

Liquefaction prevention is a liquefaction remedial measure for existing structures where other remedial measures cannot be implemented.  A perimeter soil-cement cutoff wall is recommended to installed to isolate cohesionless soils under the existing structure.  The groundwater within the perimeter cutoff wall is then permanently lowered to provide a dry or non-liquefiable zone under the structure.  Reinforcement of liquefiable soils is accomplished by installing soil-cement walls in block, wall or grid patterns to resisit the stress from embankments or other structures when loose cohesionless foundation soil liquefies during seismic ground shaking.   

Our Technologies

Multi-auger Soil Mixing


Single Large Diameter


Shallow Soil Mixing


Jet Grouting



Port of Oakland

The construction of Berths 57/58 at the Port of Oakland required the stabilization of a cut slope under a proposed container wharf extending 2,400 ft.  Over 60,000 cubic yards of DSM ground stabilization was constructed over a period of five months.  Triple-shaft DSM equipment with a real-time monitoring system was used for ground stabilization.

Raito, Inc.


