Volume 14, No. 1, 2020
Received: 2020/03/16, Accepted:
Authors:
Sahar Ismail; Fouad Kaddah; Wassim Raphael;
Abstract:
The seismic response of midrise frame structures rested on soft soils is susceptible to the dynamic interaction between structure, foundation and soil, called soil structure interaction (SSI). While seismic codes provide design acceleration charts based on 1D free-field response analysis, research into SSI is limited compared to
other structural and geotechnical topics and does not consider all parameters covering the interaction between structure, foundation and soil. In this study, a series of 3D finite element analyses were conducted using Abaqus to investigate the effects of midrise structures’ number of stories as well as raft and column dimensions while
considering SSI effects divided between inertial and kinematic. In the analyses, the frame structure was assumed
to be rested on a raft foundation and silty sandy soil block and the model was hit at bottom by El-Centro (1940)
and Northridge (1994) earthquakes. Moreover, the response of the structure was studied for (1) fixed-based and
(2) flexible-based structures. Results, presented in terms of storey lateral displacement, inter-storey drifts, shear
force, foundation rocking and response spectrum, indicate that SSI effects divide midrise structures into 2
categories: (1) 5≤ N <10 and (2) 10 ≤ N ≤ 15. In fact, SSI was beneficial for the first category, while it was
detrimental to the second. Moreover, different behaviours were obtained for different column sizes when
varying raft sizes and thicknesses. Thus, engineers should carefully optimize their design between these
different studied parameters, where an increase in column size with raft dimension caused a decrease in
foundation rocking angle, while structural stability and failure depended highly on column size.
Keywords:
Abaqus, Soil structure interaction, Silty sandy soil, Inelastic seismic response, Fully nonlinear method, Midrise moment-resisting frame.