• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.32 no.8
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• pp.47-59
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• 2016

Rocking behavior of shallow foundation reduces the superstructure load during earthquake. However, because of deficiency of understanding of rocking mechanism and soil permanent deformation, it has not been applied to real construction. In this study, slow cyclic tests were conducted for embedded shallow foundations with various slenderness ratio via centrifuge tests. From the variation of earth pressure 'soil rounding surface' phenomenon which makes maximum overturning moment equal to ultimate moment capacity was observed. Rocking and sliding behavior mechanism was evaluated. Also, nonlinear behavior and energy dissipation increase as rotation angle increases. And ultimate moment capacity of embedded foundation is larger than that of surface foundation. Finally, adequate ultimate moment capacity can be suggested for seismic design through this study.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.173-190
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• 2012

With recent growing interests in the Performance-Based Seismic Design and Assessment Methodology, more realistic modeling of a structural system is deemed essential in analyzing, designing, and evaluating both newly constructed and existing buildings under seismic events. Consequently, a shallow foundation element becomes an essential constituent in the implementation of this seismic design and assessment methodology. In this paper, a contact interface fiber section element is presented for use in modeling soil-shallow foundation systems. The assumption of a rigid footing on a Winkler-based soil rests simply on the Euler-Bernoulli's hypothesis on sectional kinematics. Fiber section discretization is employed to represent the contact interface sectional response. The hyperbolic function provides an adequate means of representing the stress-deformation behavior of each soil fiber. The element is simple but efficient in representing salient features of the soil-shallow foundation system (sliding, settling, and rocking). Two experimental results from centrifuge-scale and full-scale cyclic loading tests on shallow foundations are used to illustrate the model characteristics and verify the accuracy of the model. Based on this comprehensive model validation, it is observed that the model performs quite satisfactorily. It resembles reasonably well the experimental results in terms of moment, shear, settlement, and rotation demands. The hysteretic behavior of moment-rotation responses and the rotation-settlement feature are also captured well by the model.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.18 no.8
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• pp.5-15
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• 2017

To perform an integrated load analysis carried out to evaluate the stability evaluation of wind turbine generators, the six degree-of-freedom stiffness matrix of foundation, which describes relationships between loads and displacement, is needed. Since the foundation stiffness should accurately reflect the shape of foundation and the condition of soil, it is necessary to calculate the stiffness of the bucket foundation that considers the elasto-plastic behavior of the soil. In this study, finite element analyses were performed for a range of soils and shapes of bucket foundations to estimate the foundation stiffness. Normalized stiffness curves are developed from respective numerical simulations. Proposed results are considered to be useful because they can be directly applied in the design.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.95-102
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• 2014

In this paper, a coupling scheme for applying finite element analysis(FEA) programs, such as, LS-DYNA and MIDAS/Civil, to a nonlinear soil structure interaction analysis by the boundary reaction method(BRM) is presented. With the FEA programs, the structure and soil media are discretized by linear or nonlinear finite elements. To absorb the outgoing elastic waves to unbounded soil region as much as possible, the PML elements and viscous-spring elements are used at the outer FE boundary, in the LS-DYNA model and in MIDAS/Civil model, respectively. It is also assumed that all the nonlinear elements in the problem are limited to structural region. In this study, the boundary reaction forces for the use in the BRM are calculated using the KIESSI-3D program by solving soil-foundation interaction problem subjected to incident seismic waves. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated with a linear SSI seismic analysis problem by comparing the BRM solution with the conventional SSI solution. Numerical comparison indicates that the BRM can effectively be applied to a nonlinear soil-structure analysis if motions at the foundation obtained by the BRM for a linear SSI problem excluding the nonlinear structure is conservative.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.165-175
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• 2009

With the current move towards adopting mechanistic-empirical concepts in the design of pavement structures, state-of-the-art mechanistic analysis methodologies are needed to determine accurate pavement responses, such as stress, strain, and deformation. Previous laboratory studies of pavement foundation geomaterials, i.e., unbound granular materials used in base/subbase layers and fine-grained soils of a prepared subgrade, have shown that the resilient responses followed by nonlinear, stress-dependent behavior under repeated wheel loading. This nonlinear behavior is commonly characterized by stress-dependent resilient modulus material models that need to be incorporated into finite element (FE) based mechanistic pavement analysis methods to predict more realistically predict pavement responses for a mechanistic pavement analysis. Developed user material subroutine using aforementioned resilient model with nonlinear solution technique and convergence scheme with proven performance were successfully employed in general-purpose FE program, ABAQUS. This numerical analysis was investigated in predicted critical responses and domain selection with specific mesh generation was implemented to evaluate better prediction of pavement responses. Results obtained from both axisymmetric and three-dimensional (3D) nonlinear FE analyses were compared and remarkable findings were described for nonlinear FE analysis. The UMAT subroutine performance was also validated with the instrumented full scale pavement test section study results from the Federal Aviation Administration's National Airport Pavement Test Facility (FAA's NAPTF).

• Journal of Industrial Technology
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• v.22 no.A
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• pp.229-240
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• 2002

This paper is an experimental and numerical work of Investigating the bearing capacity of shallow foundation of rubble mound under eccentric loads. Parametric centrifuge model tests at the 50g level environments with the model footings in the form of strip footing were performed by changing the loading location of model footing, relative density and materials for ground foundation. For the model ground, crushed rock sampled from a rocky mountain was prepared with a grain size distribution of having an identical coefficient of uniformity to the field condition. Model ground was also prepared with relative densities of 50 % and 80 %. For loading condition, model tests with and without eccentric load were carned out to investigate the effect of eccentric loads and a numerical analysis with the commertially available software of FLAC was performed. For numerical estimation with FLAC, the hyperbolic model of a nonlinear elastic constitutive relationship was used to simulate the stress-stram constitutive relationship of model ground and a series of triaxial compression test were carried out to find the parameters for this model Test results were analyzed and compared with Meyerhof method (1963), effective area method based on the limit equilibrium method, and a numerical analysis with FLAC.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.09a
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• pp.515-518
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• 2010

Horizontal forces may form a major part of the loading system for structures supported on pile groups. It is known that during a strong earthquake, the dynamic behavior of a group-pile foundation is related not only to the inertial force coming from the superstructures but also to the deformation of the surrounding ground. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the behaviors of the group-pile foundations and superstructures during major earthquakes. In this paper, numerical simulation of real-scale group-pile foundation subjected to horizontal cyclic loading is conducted by using a program named as DBLEAVES. In the analysis, nonlinear behaviors of ground and piles are described by cyclic mobility model and axial force dependent model (AFD model). The purpose of this paper is to prove availability of the analysis method by comparing numerical results and test results.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.129-145
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• 2020

In typical, structural topology optimization plays a significant role to both increase stiffness and save mass of structures in the resulting design. This study contributes to a new numerical approach of topologically optimal design of Mindlin-Reissner plates considering Winkler foundation and mathematical formulations of multi-directional variable thickness of the plate by using multi-materials. While achieving optimal multi-material topologies of the plate with multi-directional variable thickness, the weight information of structures in terms of effective utilization of the material at the appropriate thickness location may be provided for engineers and designers of structures. Besides, numerical techniques of the well-established mixed interpolation of tensorial components 4 element (MITC4) is utilized to overcome a well-known shear locking problem occurring to thin plate models. The well-founded mathematical formulation of topology optimization problem with variable thickness Mindlin-Reissner plate structures by using multiple materials is derived in detail as one of main achievements of this article. Numerical examples verify that variable thickness Mindlin-Reissner plates on Winkler foundation have a significant effect on topologically optimal multi-material design results.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.127-139
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• 2019

Available methods to determine the ultimate bearing capacity of shallow foundations may not be accurate enough owing to the complicated failure mechanism and diversity of the underlying soils. Accordingly, applying new methods of artificial intelligence can improve the prediction of the ultimate bearing capacity. The M5' model tree and the genetic programming are two robust artificial intelligence methods used for prediction purposes. The model tree is able to categorize the data and present linear models while genetic programming can give nonlinear models. In this study, a combination of these methods, called the M5'-GP approach, is employed to predict the ultimate bearing capacity of the shallow foundations, so that the advantages of both methods are exploited, simultaneously. Factors governing the bearing capacity of the shallow foundations, including width of the foundation (B), embedment depth of the foundation (D), length of the foundation (L), effective unit weight of the soil (${\gamma}$) and internal friction angle of the soil (${\varphi}$) are considered for modeling. To develop the new model, experimental data of large and small-scale tests were collected from the literature. Evaluation of the new model by statistical indices reveals its better performance in contrast to both traditional and recent approaches. Moreover, sensitivity analysis of the proposed model indicates the significance of various predictors. Additionally, it is inferred that the new model compares favorably with different models presented by various researchers based on a comprehensive ranking system.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.405-420
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• 2019

In this study, vibration characteristics of offshore wind turbine tower (WTT) with gravity-based foundation (GBF) are identified from dynamic responses under wave-induced excitations. The following approaches are implemented to achieve the objective. Firstly, the operational modal analysis methods such as frequency domain decomposition (FDD) and stochastic subspace identification (SSI) are selected to estimate modal parameters from output-only dynamic responses. Secondly, a GBF WTT model composed of superstructure, substructure and foundation is simulated as a case study by using a structural analysis program, MIDAS FEA. Thirdly, wave pressures acting on the WTT structure are established by nonlinear regular waves which are simulated from a computational fluid software, Flow 3D. Wave-induced acceleration responses of the target structure are analyzed by applying the simulated wave pressures to the GBF WTT model. Finally, modal parameters such as natural frequencies and mode shapes are estimated from the output-only acceleration responses and compared with the results from free vibration analysis. The effect of wave height and period on modal parameter extraction is also investigated for the mode identification of the GBF WTT.