Parametric Analysis on the Effect of Dynamic Interaction between Nonlinear Soil and Reinforced Concrete Frame

Abstract

The effect of dynamic soil–structure interaction on the seismic demand of a reinforced concrete frame is of great significance to seismic design, retrofit, and damage evaluation. To investigate the degree of influence of the consideration of the soil–structure interaction on the structural seismic response, an efficient numerical model considering the nonlinearities of both a reinforced concrete frame and soil was developed and validated against a shaking table test. Subsequently, detailed parametric analyses on the dynamic soil–structure interaction effect were conducted, where the influences of the length and diameter of the pile, span number and frequency of the structure, soil property, and natural uncertainty of the seismic record were investigated. The research results indicate that the base shear of the pile-supported reinforced concrete frame generally increases with a larger pile length and pile diameter. The influence of the span number and pile diameter on the soil–structure interaction effect is up to 40% in some cases while that of the pile length is within 10% in general. Consideration of the soil–structure interaction can also considerably increase the structural base shear in certain cases and the growth can be greater than 30%. The dynamic soil–structure interaction effect predominantly depends on the structure frequency, spectral characteristic and peak acceleration of the seismic record, and soil shear wave velocity while the influence of the pile diameter and number of spans cannot be neglected in some cases.