Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Assam Engineering College, Assam, India

Dr. Binu Sharma is currently Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, Assam Engineering College, Assam, India. She obtained her PhD from Gauhati University in the year 2000 and M Tech in the year 1994 from Roorkee University now IIT Roorkee in Geotechnical Engineering. She joined as Lecturer in the year 1987, Assistant professor in the year 1995 and as Professor in the year 2005. She is actively engaged in teaching, research and consultancy in the field of Geotechnical engineering, particularly in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Site Response studies, Analysis and prediction of soil behaviour, Micropiles and Expansive soils. She has been awarded with the Dinesh Mohan Biannual Price and the IGS- Geotech Biannual Award by the Indian Geotechnical Society. She served as the Vice Chairman of Indian Geotechnical Society, Guwahati Chapter N.E. and Chairman of Indian Geotechnical Society, Guwahati Chapter N .E. She has more than fifty published journal and conference papers.

Speech Title: Assessment of Liquefaction Potential of Guwahati City by Deterministic and Probabilistic approaches

Abstract: Major earthquakes in India had occurred in the Himalayan Frontal Arc (HFA), extending from Kashmir in the west to Assam in the east. It is one of the most seismically active regions in the world. This has highlighted the need to better understand the vulnerability of land to seismic hazards due to future earthquakes in this region. One important seismic hazard is the likelihood of liquefaction and ground failure during seismic shaking. Liquefaction susceptibility can be evaluated based on the relationship between the standard penetration test (SPT) resistance and the cyclic stress ratio required to cause liquefaction evolved due to the continued effort of many research workers in the past few decades. These SPT based liquefaction evaluation procedures have been used to determine liquefaction susceptibility of the soil of Guwahati city in this region with the SPT data and soil properties data of 200 bore holes. However these SPT based liquefaction evaluation procedures have been found to give different results. Again the effect of large modifications in seismic waves that occur due to variation in soil properties near the surface of the earth is of great importance in geotechnical earthquake engineering. The response of a structure depends on its regional seismicity, source mechanism, geology and local soil conditions. Due to the high seismicity level together with presence of soft alluvial deposits in Guwahati city, one dimensional ground response analysis using the equivalent linear technique and non-linear technique were conducted for the two hundred locations in Guwahati city. The responses obtained were further used to determine liquefaction susceptibility of soil of Guwahati city and to identify liquefiable strata.