Adaptive Fusion Sampling Strategy Combining Geotechnical and Geophysical Data for Evaluating Two-Dimensional Soil Liquefaction Potential and Reconsolidation Settlement

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study proposes an adaptive fusion sampling strategy that automatically develops an assessment model of the spatial distribution of soil liquefaction potential from spatially sparse geotechnical data, performs monitoring of liquefaction-induced settlement, and integrates spatiotemporally unconstrained geophysical data to update the model in a systematic and quantitative manner. The topic is very interesting. However, I have several concerns that should be considered and listed below.

1. The proposed method appears to build heavily upon previous studies, but it is not entirely clear how the current work expands upon or deviates from this prior work. It would be helpful for the authors to provide a more detailed comparison between their results and those of previous studies in order to validate their theoretical approach.

2. Although the method proposed by Xu et al. (2022) claims to not require prior information, the use of MCMC to infer the posterior distribution may introduce a dependence on prior distributions. The authors should clearly explain how they inferred the posterior PDF and the likelihood function, and how these factors relate to the prior information that was used.

3. The authors of this work should discuss the advantages and disadvantages of working with the logarithm of the likelihood function in Bayesian inference, as it is a topic of interest in the field (e.g. Yang et al. 2021; Xu et al. 2022). Additionally, they should state whether or not they have utilized this approach and how it has impacted their results.

4. In Figs. 6, 8, 9, 15, 16, and 17, the colorbars appear to be too narrow, which may make it difficult for readers to accurately interpret the data. The authors should consider widening the colorbars to improve clarity.

5. The term "reliability level" is not clearly defined in this work. It would be helpful for the authors to provide a more detailed explanation of what this term refers to and whether it is related to the coefficient of variation or the reliability index.

6. It is unclear what the black circles represent in Fig. 4. The authors should clarify only the Vs data in the black circles were used for MSF-BCS. If yes, they should explain how they obtained the complete profile of Vs.

Xu et al. Fusion of geotechnical and geophysical data for 2D subsurface site characterization using multi-source Bayesian compressive sampling. Can. Geotech. J. 2022, 59, 1756–1773.

Yang et al. Bayesian estimation of spatially varying soil parameters with spatiotemporal monitoring data. Acta Geotech. 2021,16, 263-278.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper proposes a data-driven adaptive fusion sampling strategy to develop a model of soil liquefaction potential and settlement. The strategy integrates geotechnical and geophysical data and overcomes the challenge of generating high-resolution spatial distributions of liquefaction potential from sparse geotechnical data. Overall, the paper is well written and the proposed strategy has some values for geotechnical design considering dynamic loadings. The paper can be accepted for publication after answering the following questions:

1. Do you have any suggestions for the user-defined parameters, such as the target reliability level and the number of initial CPT soundings? Can you explain why the target reliability level was set at 6% in the example presented in the paper?

2. In Figure 2, the five CPT soundings are projected onto a cross-section. What is the offset of these CPT locations in relation to the cross-section? Is a large offset permitted in this projection process?

3. In Figure 5, what do the red and black dashed lines represent?

 

4. What is the main contribution of this proposed strategy compared to existing methods in the literature, and what are the limitations of the proposed strategy? Could you please discuss this topic in the paper?

 

 

The authors have a good command of English and the writing is generally clear and concise.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This study is a revised version of a manuscript that focused on evaluating liquefaction by sampling strategy. The presented approach of the study could be interesting for engineers and could help in decision-making around the liquefaction potential of a site. The specific comments are as follows:

1- I suggest that the authors present the proposed approach in a simpler way. Maybe, engineers can not use this current form in practice. Accordingly, Fig. 1 (flowchart) could be revised and simplified.  

2- I have a concern about the standard error of the method. The authors should present the standard error and standard deviation for the approach. 

3- In this study, the CPT data were employed. Is the accuracy of this method appropriate for SPT values? Please explain. 

4- Please present more information about data such as histograms. 

5- Please add a Notation. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

An excellent work.

Author Response

Thanks for your recognition of our work and for providing valuable feedback during the review of my article. 

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors answered the comments carefully. In my opinion, the current version of the manuscript is acceptable for publishing.