Abstract: This paper presents a case study of the liquefiable soil area in the BeijingShanghai high speed rail project. The seismic performance of the rail embankment and the distribution of the liquefiable soil are simulated with numerical analysis using concrete as the synthetic earthquake event. The results indicates that, the rail embankment has an amplification effect of the seismic reactions. Larger response spectrum values are found at the medium to low frequencies. Its principal frequency range is between 0.5 and 3.0 Hz. Local soils are found liquefied when the ground acceleration is 0.1 g; whereas, almost all soils will be liquefied when the ground acceleration reaches 0.15 g to 0.2 g. Therefore, the ground improvement to eliminate the potential liquefaction is needed.

Key words: liquefiable soil, earthquake, numerical simulation, seismic characteristics