ENABLING GEOTECHNICAL DATA FOR BROADER USE BY THE SPATIAL DATA INFRASTRUCTURES by Amir Ghasem Zand A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (CIVIL ENGINEERING) August 2011 Copyright 2011 Amir Ghasem Zand Acknowledgments The research presented in this dissertation was carried out under the supervision of Professor Jean-Pierre Bardet in the Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Southern California. I wish to thanks Professor Bardet for his advice, guidance and support throughout my study at USC and the preparation of this dissertation. I would also like to thank the following: members of my Ph.D. committee, Professor Geoffrey R. Martin, Professor L. Carter Wellford and Professor Petros Ioannou for their guidance in improving the manuscript; the staff of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department for their support; the graduate students of the Civil and Environmental Engineering and Computer Science Departments at USC. ii Table of Contents Acknowledgments ii List of Tables vi List of Figures x Abstract xvii Chapter 1 . Introduction 1 1.1 Objectives 2 1.2 The Benefits of the Proposed Research 4 1.3 Proliferation of Spatial Data Infrastructure 5 1.4 Geotechnical Data Usage in the Spatial Data Infrastructure 6 1.5 Examples of Applications Using Geotechnical Data 7 1.5.1 HAZUS-MH 7 1.5.2 REDARS 8 1.5.3 Seismic Hazard Analysis 9 1.5.3.1 Liquefaction Hazard Maps 9 1.5.3.2 Kobe-Jibankun 9 1.5.4 InfoTerre 10 1.5.5 SCEC Community Modeling Environment 10 1.6 Outline of the Dissertation 11 1.7 Chapter Summary 13 Chapter 2 . Data Types in Geotechnical Engineering 26 2.1 Geotechnical Engineering Field in the United States 26 2.2 Data Collection in Geotechnical Engineering 27 2.2.1.1 Geotechnical Boreholes 27 2.2.2 In-Situ Tests 28 2.2.2.1 SPT 29 2.2.2.2 CPT 31 2.2.2.3 Geophysical Tests 32 2.2.3 Laboratory Soil Tests 33 2.3 Geotechnical Data Reporting and Archiving 33 2.3.1 Hard Copies 34 2.3.2 Electronic Image Formats 34 2.3.3 Geotechnical Databases 35 2.3.3.1 gINT Geotechnical Software 35 2.3.4 GIS-Based Archiving of Geotechnical Data 36 2.3.4.1 COSMOS/PEER LL Geotechnical Virtual Data Center 38 2.3.5 Data Transfer Formats 40 2.3.5.1 AGS Data Format Structure 41 iii 2.4 Current Methods’ Shortcomings 43 Chapter 3 . Geospatial Data, Spatial Databases and Spatial Data Infrastructure 73 3.1 Definition of Geospatial Data 73 3.2 Trends in Spatial Data Usage 74 3.3 Spatial Relationships and Operations 74 3.4 Spatial Databases 75 3.4.1 Architecture of a Spatial Database Management System 77 3.4.2 Classification of Database Management Systems 77 3.5 Spatial vs. Pseudo-Spatial Data 79 3.6 Open Geospatial Consortium Geometry Object Model 79 3.7 Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) 80 3.8 Spatial Data Infrastructure Standards 81 3.8.1 Geography Markup Language 83 3.8.2 GML Structure 84 3.8.3 Web_ Feature Service Standard 86 3.8.4 Examples of SDIs 87 3.9 Integration of Geotechnical Data in SDIs 88 3.10 Geotechnical Data Model for SDIs 89 3.11 Comparison between SDI User Community and Geotechnical Engineering Community 90 Chapter 4 . Geotechnical Data Model for Spatial Data Infrastructures 103 4.1 GML Encoding of Geotechnical Data 103 4.1.1 GML Profiles 104 4.1.2 Guidelines for Development of the GML Schema 105 4.1.3 Data Dictionary and Terminology 106 4.1.4 Using Simple vs. Complex GML Features 106 4.2 GML Encoding of the AGS Data Groups 107 4.2.1 Project Data 107 4.2.2 Data Groups with Geospatial Data 107 4.2.2.1 Hole Feature 108 4.2.2.2 Other Geospatial Features 111 4.2.2.3 Data Groups with Single- Point Geometry 112 4.2.2.4 Data Groups with Two Point Geometries 112 4.2.2.5 Data Groups with LineString Geometry 113 4.2.2.6 Data Groups with MultiPoint Geometry 113 4.2.3 GML Encoding for Non-Geospatial Data Fields 114 4.2.3.1 Non-Geospatial Data types 114 4.2.4 Data Dictionaries 115 4.2.5 Units of Measurement 116 4.2.6 Validation and Implementation 116 4.3 Other Spatial Geotechnical Data Models 118 4.3.1 DIGGS Model Structure 119 4.3.2 Comparison between GeotechML and Diggs 120 iv Chapter 5 . Implementation and Case Study 166 5.1 Implementation in a Geotechnical Data Management and Distribution Architecture 166 5.2 Site-Response Analysis 168 5.2.1 Site-Response Analysis Using GML-Encoded Geotechnical Data 170 5.2.1.1 Soil Stratigraphy 171 5.2.1.2 Soil Shear Wave Velocity 172 5.2.1.3 Poisson’s Ratio 174 5.2.1.4 Soil Density 174 5.2.1.5 Soil Shear Strength 175 5.2.1.6 Shear Modulus Reduction and Damping Curves 175 5.2.2 Site-Response Analysis Application 176 5.3 Liquefaction Evaluation Using GML Data 179 5.3.1 SPT-Based Liquefaction Evaluation 179 5.3.2 CPT-Based Liquefaction Evaluation 181 5.3.3 Other Empirical Models 181 5.3.4 Liquefaction Analysis Application 182 5.4 Case Study: REDARS Analysis 183 5.4.1 Case Study Background 183 5.4.2 Improving REDARS Analysis by Including Local Site Effects 184 Chapter 6 . Summary and Conclusions 212 6.1 Summary and Recap 212 6.1.1 Objectives 212 6.1.2 Review of the Current State of Geotechnical Data Exchange 212 6.1.3 Spatial Databases 213 6.1.4 Spatial Data Infrastructures 213 6.1.5 GML-Based Geotechnical Data Format 213 6.1.6 Implementation and Case Study 214 6.2 Suggestions for Improvement and Further Research 214 6.2.1 Algorithms for Developing Soil Stratigraphy Models from Borehole Data 215 6.2.2 Developing a More Comprehensive Earthquake Engineering Database 216 6.2.3 Improving the GML-Based Geotechnical Data Format 216 6.2.4 Developing Client Software for Other Applications 217 Bibliography 218 Appendix. Seismic Hazard Analysis for Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach Transportation Network Bridges 225 Appendix References 261 v List of Tables Table 1-1. A list of selected multi-disciplinary applications that use geotechnical data. 14 Table 2-1. Industry-occupation matrix for civil engineers based on Bureau of Labor statistics data. 45 Table 2-2. Common borehole types in geotechnical engineering investigations. 46 Table 2-3. Common sample types in geotechnical engineering investigations. 47 Table 2-4. List of common field tests in geotechnical engineering investigations. 48 Table 2-5. Perceived applicability of CPT test for deriving soil design parameters (Robertson and Cabal, 2009). 49 Table 2-6. List of common geophysical tests in geotechnical engineering. 50 Table 2-7. List of some of the most common laboratory tests in geotechnical engineering. 51 Table 2-8. Partial list of geotechnical engineering database programs. 52 Table 2-9. Some of the Web-based geotechnical data management and archiving systems. 53 Table 2-10. List of file and data formats for geotechnical engineering applications. 54 Table 2-11. Excerpt from an AGS data transfer format instance file. 55 Table 2-12. List of AGS data transfer format data groups. 56 Table 2-13. AGS data transfer format "PROJ" data group. This data group contains the information for the data file project. 58 Table 3-1. Spatial relationships between different spatial objects. 92 Table 3-2. OGC spatial operators defined on the class Geometry. 93 Table 3-3. Classification of database management systems based on different criteria. 94 Table 3-4. Standards currently used or proposed for use in SDIs. 95 Table 3-5. Proposed SDI 1.0 Core, Supplemental and Future standards. 96 vi Table 3-6. A list of some of the domain-specific standards/initiatives, which are based on GML specifications. 97 Table 3-7. Some of the organizations and projects involved in the INSPIRE European SDI initiative (Craglia and Annoni, 2007). 98 Table 3-8. Requirements of a spatially-enabled data model for geotechnical applications. 99 Table 4-1. Pros and cons of simple features versus complex features in GML. 122 Table 4-2. AGS data transfer format for HOLE data group. This data group is used to store the data for boreholes, e.g., borehole type, location and geometry. 123 Table 4-3. GML encoding for HOLE data group. 124 Table 4-4. GML schema for BoringDatum element. BoringDatum defines a local datum for each borehole, which is used to reference soil layers and samples along the borehole. 125 Table 4-5. GML encoding for a CurveByDirection element defined by Origin and Length/Direction pairs. 126 Table 4-6. An instance of CurveByDirection defined by Origin and a single Length- Direction pair. 127 Table 4-7. A sample instance of Hole feature, based on the schema shown in Table 4-3. 128 Table 4-8. Application of srsName attribute to refer to local CRS for a Point feature. The “Hole_TP501_CRS” refers to the coordinate reference system for borehole TP501, defined in Table 4-7. 129 Table 4-9. AGS data groups that are defined using a single Point geometry. 130 Table 4-10. AGS data transfer format "ISPT" data group. This data group is used to store the data for SPT.