Abstract:Main framework and topics of seismicliquefaction study are summarized, including the current state of the art and trends, with respect to mechanism of liquefaction, susceptibility ofliquefaction, liquefaction flowslides, liquefaction-induced deformation andnumerical modeling techniques. It is shown that the key issues of seismicliquefaction in practice are related not with strength but with deformation. Theliquefaction-induced deformation evaluation techniques can be diveded into two categories: (1) empirical methods based on statistical analysis ofhistorical seismic liquefaction deformation database and (2) numericalmodeling. Numerical modeling is shown to be an effective tool and havewidespread prospect for analysis of complex boundary value problemsof seismic liquefaction. In future seismic liquefaction research, itis important to improve the existing methods of liquefaction susceptibilityanalysis and liquefaction-induced deformation evaluation by establishing andanalyzing the seismic hazard database. But more emphases should be placed onrevealing the mechanism of seismic liquefaction, developing constitutive models that can describe the stress-strain behavior of sand over a small tolarge strain range during an entire pre- and post-liquefaction process, anddeveloping corresponding numerical algorithms to implement themodels in the simulation of practical boundary-value problems.