| Liquefaction induced building settlement and loss of foundation bearing strength were major causes of damage to buildings in Adapazari during the 17 August 1999 Kocaeli, Turkey earthquake. Hundreds of buildings in that city settled and tilted by varying degrees due to apparent liquefaction of the subsurface soils. With so many affected buildings, Adapazari provides a natural laboratory for the study of the effects of liquefaction on building performance. To obtain information on the stratigraphy of the subsurface soils in Adapazari, ninety cone penetrometer (CPT) soundings and fourteen borings were made along four lines laid out through the damage areas. Most CPT soundings were to a depth of ten meters, but fourteen soundings were pushed to greater depths. Some of these soundings reached depths of thirty meters. Eighteen of the CPT soundings included pore pressure measurements and seven of the soundings included shear wave velocity measurements. Boreholes were drilled adjacent to fourteen of the soundings to provide soil samples and standard penetration data for comparisons with the CPT data. Laboratory soil classification tests, including grain size distributions and Atterberg limits, were performed on representative split spoon samples. |