• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.167-181
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• 2024

The soil-structure relative stiffness is a key factor affecting the seismic response of underground structures. It is of great significance to study the soil-structure relative stiffness for the soil-structure interaction and the seismic disaster reduction of subway stations. In this paper, the dynamic shear modulus ratio and damping ratio of an inhomogeneous soft soil site under different buried depths which were obtained by a one-dimensional equivalent linearization site response analysis were used as the input parameters in a 2D finite element model. A visco-elasto-plastic constitutive model based on the Mohr-Coulomb shear failure criterion combined with stiffness degradation was used to describe the plastic behavior of soil. The damage plasticity model was used to simulate the plastic behavior of concrete. The horizontal and vertical relative stiffness ratios of soil and structure were defined to study the influence of relative stiffness on the seismic response of subway stations in inhomogeneous soft soil. It is found that the compression damage to the middle columns of a subway station with a higher relative stiffness ratio is more serious while the tensile damage is slighter under the same earthquake motion. The relative stiffness has a significant influence on ground surface deformation, ground acceleration, and station structure deformation. However, the effect of the relative stiffness on the deformation of the bottom slab of the subway station is small. The research results can provide a reference for seismic fortification of subway stations in the soft soil area.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.5-16
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• 2016

In the geosynthetics-reinforced piled embankment the effects of soft soil stiffness, friction angle of the fill material, tensile stiffness of geosynthetics, and height of the embankment on the load transfer soil arch measured by the critical height were numerically investigated. Results from parametric studies show that the magnitude of the soft soil stiffness is the most influencing factor on the critical height. The contour charts of the critical height with respect to the combination of the soft soil stiffness and other parameters were presented. The charts show that the critical height sensitively varies with the combination of the soft soil stiffness and the height of embankment. Under the sufficiently low stiffness of soft soil, the critical height sensitively varies with the friction angle of the fill material. Once the geosynthetic layer is placed, however, the magnitude of the tensile stiffness of the geosynthetic layer hardly influences the critical height of the soil arch.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.31-43
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• 2015

A numerical analysis on the effect of increasing tensile stiffness of the geosynthetics on the soil displacement and pile efficiency was conducted. Parametric studies by changing the stiffness of soft soil, internal friction and dilatancy angles of the embankment material, and flexual stiffness of the composite layer including the geosynthetics were carried out. In general, increasing stiffness of the geosynthetics improves the pile efficiency, whereas the amount of its improvement depends on the condition of parameters. In case of the sufficiently low stiffness of the soft soil or high flexual stiffness of the composite layer including the geosynthetics, a noticeable increase in the pile efficiency can be observed. When the stiffness of the soft soil is very low, the increase in the stiffness of the geosynthetics can significantly reduce the vertical displacement in the piled embankment. When the flexual stiffness of the composite layer is sufficiently high, increasing stiffness of the geosynthetics can greatly improve the pile efficiency.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.655-676
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• 2013

In this study, strength reduction factors and inelastic displacement ratios are investigated for SDOF systems with period range of 0.1-3.0 s considering soil structure interaction for earthquake motions recorded on soft soil. The effect of stiffness degradation on strength reduction factors and inelastic displacement ratios is investigated. The modified-Clough model is used to represent structures that exhibit significant stiffness degradation when subjected to reverse cyclic loading and the elastoplastic model is used to represent non-degrading structures. The effect of negative strain - hardening on the inelastic displacement and strength of structures is also investigated. Soil structure interacting systems are modeled and analyzed with effective period, effective damping and effective ductility values differing from fixed-base case. For inelastic time history analyses, Newmark method for step by step time integration was adapted in an in-house computer program. New equations are proposed for strength reduction factor and inelastic displacement ratio of interacting system as a function of structural period($\tilde{T}$, T) ductility (${\mu}$) and period lengthening ratio ($\tilde{T}$/T).

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.161-189
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• 2015

Soil-pile raft-structure interaction is recognized as a significant phenomenon which influences the seismic behaviour of structures. Soil structure interaction (SSI) has been extensively used to analyze the response of superstructure and piled raft through various modelling and analysis techniques. Major drawback of previous study is that overall interaction among entire soil-pile raft-superstructure system considering highlighting the change in design forces of various components in structure has not been explicitly addressed. A recent study addressed this issue in a broad sense, exhibiting the possibility of increase in pile shear due to SSI. However, in this context, relative stiffness of raft and that of pile with respect to soil and length of pile plays an important role in regulating this effect. In this paper, effect of relative stiffness of piled raft and soil along with other parameters is studied using a simplified model incorporating pile-soil raft and superstructure interaction in very soft, soft and moderately stiff soil. It is observed that pile head shear may significantly increase if the relative stiffness of raft and pile increases and furthermore stiffer pile group has a stronger effect. Outcome of this study may provide insight towards the rational seismic design of piles.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.741-758
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• 2013

In this study, inelastic displacement ratios are investigated for existing systems with known lateral strength considering soil structure interaction. For this purpose, SDOF systems for period range of 0.1-3.0 s with different hysteretic behaviors are considered for a number of 18 earthquake motions recorded on soft soil. The effect of stiffness degradation on inelastic displacement ratios is investigated. The Modified Clough model is used to represent structures that exhibit significant stiffness degradation when subjected to reverse cyclic loading and the elastoplastic model is used to represent non-degrading structures. Soil structure interaction analyses are conducted by means of equivalent fixed base model effective period, effective damping and effective ductility values differing from fixed-base case. For inelastic time history analyses, Newmark method for step by step time integration was adapted in an in-house computer program. A new equation is proposed for inelastic displacement ratio of system with SSI with elastoplastic or degrading behavior as a function of structural period ($\tilde{T}$), strength reduction factor (R) and period lengthening ratio ($\tilde{T}$/T). The proposed equation for $\tilde{C}_R$ which takes the soil-structure interaction into account should be useful in estimating the inelastic deformation of existing structures with known lateral strength.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.383-393
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• 2024

Monopile foundations of offshore wind turbines embedded in soft clay are subjected to the long-term cyclic lateral loads induced by winds, currents, and waves, the vibration of monopile leads to the accumulation of pore pressure and cyclic strains in the soil in its vicinity, which poses a threat to the safety operation of monopile. The researchers mainly focused on the hysteretic stress-strain relationship of soft clay and kinds of stiffness degradation models have been adopted, which may consume considerable computing resources and is not applicable for the long-term bearing performance analysis of monopile. In this study, a modified cyclic stiffness degradation model considering the effect of plastic strain and pore pressure change has been proposed and validated by comparing with the triaxial test results. Subsequently, the effects of cyclic load ratio, pile aspect ratio, number of load cycles, and length to embedded depth ratio on the accumulated rotation angle and pore pressure are presented. The results indicate the number of load cycles can significantly affect the accumulated rotation angle of monopile, whereas the accumulated pore pressure distribution along the pile merely changes with pile diameter, embedded length, and the number of load cycles, the stiffness of monopile can be significantly weakened by decreasing the embedded depth ratio L/H of monopile. The stiffness degradation of soil is more significant in the passive earth pressure zone, in which soil liquefaction is likely to occur. Furthermore, the suitability of the "accumulated rotation angle" and "accumulated pore pressure" design criteria for determining the required cyclic load ratio are discussed.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.577-588
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• 2018

A major concern in deep excavation project in soft clay deposits is the potential for adjacent buildings to be damaged as a result of the associated excessive ground movements. In order to accurately determine the wall deflections using a numerical procedure such as the finite element method, it is critical to use the correct soil parameters such as the stiffness/strength properties. This can be carried out by performing an inverse analysis using the measured wall deflections. This paper firstly presents the results of extensive plane strain finite element analyses of braced diaphragm walls to examine the influence of various parameters such as the excavation geometry, soil properties and wall stiffness on the wall deflections. Based on these results, a multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) model was developed for inverse parameter identification of the soil relative stiffness ratio. A second MARS model was also developed for inverse parameter estimation of the wall system stiffness, to enable designers to determine the appropriate wall size during the preliminary design phase. Soil relative stiffness ratios and system stiffness values derived via these two different MARS models were found to compare favourably with a number of field and published records.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.68 no.2
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• pp.159-170
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• 2018

This paper aims to develop response modification factors for stiffness degrading structures by incorporating soil-structure interaction effects. A comprehensive parametric study is conducted to investigate the effects of key SSI parameters, natural period of vibration, ductility demand and hysteretic behavior on the response modification factor of soil-structure systems. The nonlinear dynamic response of 6300 soil-structure systems are studied under two ensembles of accelograms including 20 recorded and 7 synthetic ground motions. It is concluded that neglecting the stiffness degradation of structures can results in up to 22% underestimation of inelastic strength demands in soil-structure systems, leading to an unexpected high level of ductility demand in the structures located on soft soil. Nonlinear regression analyses are then performed to derive a simplified expression for estimating ductility-dependent response modification factors for stiffness degrading soil-structure systems. The adequacy of the proposed expression is investigated through sensitivity analyses on nonlinear soil-structure systems under seven synthetic spectrum compatible earthquake ground motions. A good agreement is observed between the results of the predicted and the target ductility demands, demonstrating the adequacy of the expression proposed in this study to estimate the inelastic demands of SSI systems with stiffness degrading structures. It is observed that the maximum differences between the target and average target ductility demands was 15%, which is considered acceptable for practical design purposes.

• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.43-52
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• 1990

To investigate the effects of soil properties of the soft zone around a pile subjected 1,o the horizontal harmonic vibration, the parametric study is perfomed. The determination of the soil reaction or stiffness of the Winkler springs representing the soil around a pile is performed by dividing the soil profile into a number of homogeneous obtained from this study are as follows : 1) The real and imaginary parts of the stiffness show clear variations for the different shear modulus ratios, poisson's ratios, and distance retios to outer boundary as the dimensionless frequency increases. The differences are more pronounced for the imaginary part of the stiffness. 2) The stiffness of soil shows clear decrease. The real parts of the stiffness show larger as the frequency increases. On the other hand, the imaginary parts of the stiffness show smaller.