Soil–Structure Interaction Consideration for Base Isolated Structures under Earthquake Excitation

Abstract

This study aims to analytically implement base isolation with soil–structure interaction (SSI) on a sample structure and to develop a very simple solution to add these combined effects into the mass, damping and stiffness matrices of the structure. A spectrum analysis is also carried out considering the base-isolated structures and SSI. Dynamic simulations are performed throughout the study. In these simulations, three shear frame structures with different properties are considered. The strong ground motions selected for these analyses are eighteen different events with far-fault and near-fault components. In addition, four different base and soil structure combination cases are taken into account. These four analytical cases are a conventional structure with a fixed base and with SSI and a seismically isolated structure with or without the SSI. The numerical results showed that when SSI is considered, the effectiveness of the base isolation system may decrease, and the effect is prominent in softer soil conditions.