Computational Simulation Procedure for Soil-Structure Interaction Modeling in Building Seismic Damage Response

A finite element based computational procedure is presented for soil-structure interaction modeling in building seismic response. Attention is focused on a combination of contact surfaces at the soil-foundation interface, nonlinear soil material and infinite elements as transmitting boundary conditions. A rationale for efficient mesh design is offered for the building/foundation/soil system model based on computational wave propagation studies using infinite elements. As a the proposed procedure, a comparison is made between results of eigen mode analysis of two models for a 3-story office building, with the conventional treatment of the foundation and soil as discrete linear springs [3], and the other incorporating the propose procedure