• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.345-352
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• 2023

This paper studied the effect of soil-structure interaction (SSI) on the seismic response and retrofit of a reinforced concrete structure with a soft-first story for different soil types. A 5-story structure built on a 30m deep homogeneous soil mass was considered as a case study structure, and steel column jacketing and steel bracing were chosen as seismic retrofit methods. Seismic responses of a fixed-base and a flexible base structure subjected to seven scaled earthquake records were obtained using the software OpenSees to investigate the effect of soil on seismic response and retrofit. The nonlinearBeamColumn elements with the fiber sections were used to simulate the nonlinear behavior of the beams and columns. Soil properties were defined based on shear wave velocity according to categorized site classes defined in ASCE-7. The finite element model of the soil was made using isoparametric four-noded quadrilateral elements and the nonlinear dynamic responses of the combined system of soil and structure were calculated in the OpenSees. The analysis results indicate that the soil-structure interaction plays an important role in the seismic performance and retrofit of a structure with a soft-first story. It was observed that column steel jacketing was effective in the retrofit of the model structure on a fixed base, whereas stronger retrofit measures such as steel bracing were needed when soil-structure interaction was considered.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.50-56
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• 2007

In the past, a number of approaches, such as analytical, numerical or experimental methods, have been developed to deal with the soil-structure interaction effects. However, for many problems with complex geometry and material discontinuity most of approaches are nearly unpractical since it is difficult to model structures and complicated soil profiles precisely. This paper presents a soil-structure interaction analysis approach, which carl consider precisely characteristics of structures and complicated soil profiles. The presented approach overcomes the difficulties by adopting an unaligned mesh generation approach. From numerical examples, the applicability of the proposed approach is validated and dynamic responses of soil-structure systems subjected to earthquake loading are investigated considering characteristics of structures and complicated soil profiles.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.575-587
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• 2005

Using the nonlinear load transfer function for pile side soil and the linear load transfer function for pile end soil, a combined approach of the incremental load transfer matrix method and the approximate differential equation solution method is presented for the nonlinear analysis of interaction between flexible pile group and soil. The proposed method provides an effective approach for the solution of the nonlinear interaction between flexible pile group under rigid platform and surrounding soil. To verify the accuracy of the proposed method, a static load test for a nine-pile group under a rigid platform is carried out. The finite element analysis is also conducted for comparison purposes. It is found that the results from the proposed method match very well with those from the experimental test and are better in comparison with the finite element method.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2001.04a
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• pp.136-143
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• 2001

In this study, a numerical analysis for soil-pile interaction systems in multi-layered half planes under a forced vibration is presented. The soil-pile interaction system is divided into two parts, so called near field and far field. The near field soil using finite elements and piles using beam elements are modeled. The far field soil media is implemented using boundary elements those can automatically satisfy the condition of wave radiation. These two fields are numerically coupled by imposing displacement compatibility condition at the interface between the near field and the far field. For the verification, the forced vibration test was simulated and the response under horizontal and vertical harmonic loads at the pile cap in the layered half plane was determined. The results are compared to the theoretical and experimental results of the literatures to verify the proposed soil-pile interaction analysis formulation.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.267-276
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• 2014

Wharfs are essential to shipping and support very large gravity loads on both a short-term and long-term basis which cause quite large seismic internal forces. Therefore, these structures are vulnerable to seismic activities. As they are supported on vertical and/or batter piles, soil-pile interaction effects under earthquake events have a great importance in seismic resistance which is not yet fully understood. Seismic design codes have become more stringent and suggest the use of new design methods, such as Performance Based Design principles. According to Turkish Code for Coastal and Port Structures (TCCS 2008), the interaction between soil and pile should somehow be considered in the nonlinear analysis in an accurate manner. This study aims to explore the lateral load carrying capacity of recently designed wharf structures considering soil-pile interaction effects for different soil conditions. For this purpose, nonlinear structure analysis according to TCCS (2008) has been performed comparing simplified and detailed modeling results.

• Interaction and multiscale mechanics
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.65-83
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• 2011

In this study, two extreme cases of compatibility of the horizontal displacements between the foundation and soil are considered, for which the pressure and settlements of the isolated footings and member end actions in structural elements are obtained using the three dimensional models and numerical experiments. The first case considered is complete slip between foundation and soil, termed as the un-coupled analysis. In the second case of analysis, termed as the coupled analysis, complete welding is assumed of joints between the foundation and soil elements. The model and the corresponding computer program developed simulate these two extreme states of compatibility giving insight into the variation of horizontal displacements and horizontal stresses and their intricacies, for evaluation of the influence of using the interface elements in soil-structure interaction analysis of three dimensional multiscale structures supported by isolated footings.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.239-249
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• 2014

In this paper, the analysis of a numerical study of pile-soil interaction subjected to axial and lateral loads is presented. An analysis of the composite pile-soil system was performed using the finite difference (FD) software LPILE. Two three dimensional, finite element (FE) models of pile-soil interaction have been developed using Abaqus/Cae and SAP2000 to study the effect of lateral loading on pile embedded in clay. A lateral displacement of 2 cm was applied to the top of the pile, which is embedded into the concrete pile cap, while maintaining a zero slope in a guided fixation. A comparison between the bending moments and lateral displacements along the depth of the pile obtained from the FD solutions and FE was performed. A parametric study was conducted to study the effect of crucial design parameters such as the soil's modulus of elasticity, radius of the soil surrounding the pile in Abaqus/Cae, and the number of springs in SAP2000. A close correlation is found between the results obtained by the FE models and the FD solution. The results indicated that increasing the amount of clay surrounding the piles reduces the induced bending moments and lateral displacements in the piles and hence increases its capacity to resist lateral loading.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.4 no.5
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• pp.557-585
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• 2013

The recent huge earthquake ground motion records in Japan result in the reconsideration of seismic design forces for nuclear power stations from the view point of seismological research. In addition, the seismic design force should be defined also from the view point of structural engineering. In this paper it is shown that one of the occurrence mechanisms of such large acceleration in recent seismic records (recorded in or near massive structures and not free-field ground motions) is due to the interaction between a massive building and its surrounding soil which induces amplification of local mode in the surface soil. Furthermore on-site investigation after earthquakes in the nuclear power stations reveals some damages of soil around the building (cracks, settlement and sand boiling). The influence of plastic behavior of soil is investigated in the context of interaction between the structure and the surrounding soil. Moreover the amplification property of the surface soil is investigated from the seismic records of the Suruga-gulf earthquake in 2009 and the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku earthquake in 2011. Two methods are introduced for the analysis of the non-stationary process of ground motions. It is shown that the non-stationary Fourier spectra can detect the temporal change of frequency contents of ground motions and the displacement profile integrated from its acceleration profile is useful to evaluate the seismic behavior of the building and the surrounding soil.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.88 no.3
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• pp.273-285
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• 2023

This study examines how the interaction between soil and a wind turbine's supporting system affects the optimal design. The supporting system resting on an elastic soil foundation consists of a steel conical tower and a concrete circular raft foundation, and it is subjected to wind loads. The material cost of the supporting system is aimed to be minimized employing various metaheuristic optimization algorithms including teaching-learning based optimization (TLBO). To include the influence of the soil in the optimization process, modified Vlasov and Gazetas elastic soil models are integrated into the optimization algorithms using the application programing interface (API) feature of the structural analysis program providing two-way data flow. As far as the optimal designs are considered, the best minimum cost design is achieved for the TLBO algorithm, and the modified Vlasov model makes the design economical compared with the simple Gazetas and infinitely rigid soil models. Especially, the optimum design dimensions of the raft foundation extremely reduce when the Vlasov realistic soil reactions are included in the optimum analysis. Additionally, as the designated design wind speed is decreased, the beneficial impact of soil interaction on the optimum material cost diminishes.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.125-132
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• 2014

In this study, a series of dynamic centrifuge tests were performed for a soil-foundation-structural interaction system in dry sand with various embedded depths and superstructure conditions. Sinusoidal wave, sweep wave and real earthquake were used as input motion with various input acceleration and frequencies. Based on the results, a natural period and an earthquake load for soil-structure interaction system were evaluated by comparing the free-field and foundation accelerations. The natural period of free field is longer than that of the soil-foundation-structure system. In addition, it is confirmed that the earthquake load for soil-foundation-structure system is smaller than that of free-field in short period region. In contrast, the earthquake load for soil-foundation-structure interaction system is larger than that of free-field in long period region. Therefore, the current seismic design method, applying seismic loading of free-field to foundation, could overly underestimate seismic load and cause unsafe design for long period structures, such as high-rise buildings.