Coupled Soil-Structure Interaction Effects of Building Clusters During Earthquakes

Yigit D. Isbiliroglu, Ricardo Taborda, & Jacobo Bielak

Published October 30, 2013, SCEC Contribution #1676

This paper deals with the response of building clusters during earthquakes, the effect that they have on the ground motion, and how individual buildings interact with the soil and with each other. We simulate the ground motion during the 1994 Northridge earthquake and focus on the coupled response of multiple simplified building models located within the San Fernando Valley. Numerical results show that the soil-structure interaction (SSI) effects vary with the number and dynamic properties of the buildings, their separation, and the group impedance with respect to the soil. These effects appear primarily as: (i) an increased spatial variability of the ground motion, with reductions of up to 30 percent to amplifications of 10 percent; and (ii) reductions of up to 50 percent in the buildings’ base motion at high frequencies, significant changes in the higher natural frequencies of the building-foundation systems and variations of up to 30 percent in the peak roof response, with respect to those of the corresponding fixed-base and isolated SSI models.

Citation
Isbiliroglu, Y. D., Taborda, R., & Bielak, J. (2013). Coupled Soil-Structure Interaction Effects of Building Clusters During Earthquakes. Earthquake Spectra, 31(1), 463-500. doi: 10.1193/102412EQS315M.

Related Projects & Working Groups
Computational Science, Ground-Motion Prediction