Date of Award
5-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Civil Engineering
Committee Chair/Advisor
Dr. Ronald D. Andrus
Committee Member
Dr. Qiushi Chen
Committee Member
Dr. Nadarajah Ravichandran
Abstract
The 1886 Charleston earthquake is one of the most destructive earthquakes in the history of the southeastern United States. It caused widespread damage and liquefaction, which is a phenomenon in which loose saturated granular soils lose their strength and behave like liquids during earthquakes. The main purpose of this research is to investigate how the earthquake changed the internal structure (termed as “microstructure”) of the sandy soil in the Charleston area. In general, when soil is deposited on a site and sits there for a long period of time, it develops a stronger structure through aging and cementation. To infer this aging and cementation effect, a ratio called the measured-to-estimated shearwave velocity ratio (MEVR) was used in this study, which, in simple terms, is the measured stiffness of the soil divided by the estimated stiffness of a young soil with similar strength. After analyzing data across 228 sites, it was found that regardless of their geologic age, many of the sites exhibited similar microstructure. This implies that the disturbance of the 1886 earthquake was so impactful that it disturbed the structure of the older sands at several locations, and they now behave like much younger sands. Furthermore, an advanced mapping tool called ArcGIS Pro was used to create an average MEVR heatmap of the Charleston area to see if the soil disturbance was near the earthquake’s inferred source. Many scientists throughout the years have come up with their interpretation of the source zone of this earthquake. This study compared the heatmap with three of the interpretations of the source zone. While the ground disturbance was found to be significant near the source zone, a very weak direct relation between MEVR and the distance of the sites from the source was established based on the three fault models. This iii implies that, in addition to the distance from the source, other factors, such as the depth of the groundwater at the site, the thickness of the sand layers, the change in ground shaking intensity away from the source, and possibly other factors, played a critical role in how the soil microstructure changed during the earthquake.
Recommended Citation
Paudel, Bikram, "Inferring Microstructure in Quaternary Sands Near Charleston, South Carolina Using Measured-to-Estimated Shear-Wave Velocity Ratio" (2026). All Theses. 4727.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_theses/4727