Evaluation of Soil Structure Interaction Effects on Seismic Response of RC Framed Buildings Using Simplified Method

Abstract

In the current practice for the design of the building structure is done by considering the footing as fixed based. The mid-rise buildings having variation in storey height from 3- to 10-storey were selected for the research. In this research, analysis was done to study into the interaction between the seismic response of RC-framed buildings and the soil-structure for various soil types. To study the linear responses of the structures, the model was developed in FEM software SAP2000. The underneath soil was modelled by using direct method, where the soil is considered as solid element. The considered depth of soil was considered 30 m and the viscous spring dashpot were applied to avoid the reflection of seismic waves in soil medium along the effective horizontal soil boundaries. The seismic response variables such as maximum lateral deflection, inter-storey drift and fundamental time periods have been studied. SSI amplified the lateral deflection, inter-storey drift and time period of structure shifting the performance level from life safety to near collapse level. Fundamental time period of the first mode was increased by 23 % for very soft soil. The maximum lateral deflection of 10-storey building for very soft soil was amplified up to 282 % for Kobe and the performance level was shifted from life safety (1.5 %) to collapse level for all the considered model for soil type D . The performance level of structure was checked against the different soil types on varying storey height and finally a simplified method has been proposed to incorporate the effects of SSI in fixed base structures.

Keywords

• soil structure interaction
• simplified method
• seismic response
• linear dynamic analysis
• inter-storey drift