• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.369-376
• /
• 2020

Given the importance of quickly recovering livelihoods and economic activity after an earthquake, the seismic performance of the pile foundation is becoming more critical than before. In order to promote seismic retrofit of the pile foundations, it is necessary to develop a method for evaluating the seismic performance of the pile foundation based on the experimental data. In this paper, we focus on the building that was suffered severe damage to the pile foundation, conduct simulation analyses of the building, and report the results of evaluating the dynamic characteristics when piles are damaged using a system identification method. As a result, an analysis model that can accurately simulate the behavior of the damaged building during an earthquake was constructed, and it was shown that the system identification method could extract dynamic characteristics that may damage piles.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.601-619
• /
• 2017

Cantilever retaining wall movements generally depend on the intensity and duration of ground motion, the response of the soil underlying the wall, the response of the backfill, the structural rigidity, and soil-structure interaction (SSI). This paper investigates the effect of material properties on seismic response of backfill-cantilever retaining wall-soil/foundation interaction system considering SSI. The material properties varied include the modulus of elasticity, Poisson's ratio, and mass density of the wall material. A series of nonlinear time history analyses with variation of material properties of the cantilever retaining wall are carried out by using the suggested finite element model (FEM). The backfill and foundation soil are modelled as an elastoplastic medium obeying the Drucker-Prager yield criterion, and the backfill-wall interface behavior is taken into consideration by using interface elements between the wall and soil to allow for de-bonding. The viscous boundary model is used in three dimensions to consider radiational effect of the seismic waves through the soil medium. In the seismic analyses, North-South component of the ground motion recorded during August 17, 1999 Kocaeli Earthquake in Yarimca station is used. Dynamic equations of motions are solved by using Newmark's direct step-by-step integration method. The response quantities incorporate the lateral displacements of the wall relative to the moving base and the stresses in the wall in all directions. The results show that while the modulus of elasticity has a considerable effect on seismic behavior of cantilever retaining wall, the Poisson's ratio and mass density of the wall material have negligible effects on seismic response.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.19 no.5
• /
• pp.523-538
• /
• 2017

A series of field vibration tests are conducted on the Runyang Suspension Bridge during both the construction and operational stages. The purpose of this study is devoted to the analysis of the dynamic characteristics of the suspension tower. After the tower was erected, an array of accelerometers was deployed to study the evolution of its modal parameters during the construction process. Dynamic tests were first performed under the freestanding tower condition and then under the tower-cable condition after the superstructure was installed. Based on the identified modal parameters, the effect of the pile-soil-structure interaction on dynamic characteristics of the suspension tower is investigated. Moreover, the stiffness of the pile foundation is successfully identified using a probabilistic finite model updating method. Furthermore, challenges of identifying the dynamic properties of the tower from the coupled responses of the tower-cable system are discussed in detail. It's found that compared with the identified results from the freestanding tower, the longitudinal and torsional natural frequencies of the tower in the tower-cable system have changed significantly, while the lateral mode frequencies change slightly. The identified modal results from measurements by the structural health monitoring system further confirmed that the vibrations of the bridge subsystems (i.e., the tower, the suspended deck and the main cable) are strongly coupled with one another.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.32 no.3
• /
• pp.255-270
• /
• 2023

One of the main parameters that affect the design of suction caisson-supported offshore structures is uplift behavior. Pull-out of suction caissons is profoundly utilized as the offshore wind turbine foundations accompany by a tensile resistance that is a function of a complex interaction between the caisson dimensions, geometry, wall roughness, soil type, load history, pull-out rate, and many other parameters. In this paper, a parametric study using a 3-D finite element model (FEM) of a single offshore suction caisson (SOSC) surrounded by saturated soil is performed to examine the effect of some key factors on the tensile resistance of the suction bucket foundation. Among the aforementioned parameters, caisson geometry and uplift loading as well as the difference between the tensile resistance and suction pressure on the behavior of the soil-foundation system including tensile capacity are investigated. For this purpose, a full model including 3-D suction caisson, soil, and soil-structure interaction (SSI) is developed in Abaqus based on the u-p formulation accounting for soil displacement (u) and pore pressure, P.The dynamic responses of foundations are compared and validated with the known results from the literature. The paper has focused on the effect of geometry change of 3-D SOSC to present the soil-structure interaction and the tensile capacity. Different 3-D caisson models such as triangular, pentagonal, hexagonal, and octagonal are employed. It is observed that regardless of the caisson geometry, by increasing the uplift loading rate, the tensile resistance increases. More specifically, it is found that the resistance to pull-out of the cylinder is higher than the other geometries and this geometry is the optimum one for designing caissons.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.13 no.6
• /
• pp.929-946
• /
• 2017

Composite foundation treated with compaction piles can eliminate collapsibility and improve the bearing capacity of foundation in loess area. However, the large number of piles in the composite foundation leads to difficulties in the analysis of such type of engineering works. This paper proposes two simplified methods to quantify the stability of composite foundation treated with a large number of compaction piles. The first method is based on the principle of making the area replacement ratios of the simplified model as the same time as the practical engineering situation. Then, discrete piles arranged in a triangular shape can be simplified in the model where the annular piles and compacted soil are arranged alternately. The second method implements equivalent continuous treatment in the pile-soil area and makes the whole treated region equivalent to a type of composite material. Both methods have been verified using treated foundation of an oil storage tank. The results have shown that the differences in the settlement values obtained from the water filled test in the field and those calculated by the two simplified methods are negligible. Using stability analysis, the difference ratios of the static and dynamic safety factors of the composite foundation treated with compaction piles calculated by these two simplified methods are found to be 3.56% and 5.32%, respectively. At the same time, both static and dynamic safety factors are larger than the general safety factor, which should be greater than or equal to 2.0 according to the provisions in civil engineering. This indicates that after being treated with compaction piles, the bearing capacity of the composite foundation is effectively improved and the foundation has enough safety reserve.

• Coupled systems mechanics
• /
• v.8 no.5
• /
• pp.393-414
• /
• 2019

This paper presents seismic analysis of concrete gravity dams considering soil-structure-fluid interaction. Displacement based plane strain finite element formulation is considered for the dam and foundation domain whereas pressure based finite element formulation is considered for the reservoir domain. A direct coupling method has been adopted to obtain the interaction effects among the dam, foundation and reservoir domain to obtain the dynamic responses of the dam. An efficient absorbing boundary condition has been implemented at the truncation surfaces of the foundation and reservoir domains. A parametric study has been carried out considering each domain separately and collectively based on natural frequencies, crest displacement and stress at the neck level of the dam body. The combined frequency of the entire coupled system is very less than that of the each individual sub-system. The crest displacement and neck level stresses of the dam shows prominent enhancement when coupling effect is taken into consideration. These outcomes suggest that a complete coupled analysis is necessary to obtain the actual responses of the concrete gravity dam. The developed methodology can easily be implemented in finite element code for analyzing the coupled problem to obtain the desired responses of the individual subdomains.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
• /
• v.24 no.9
• /
• pp.33-40
• /
• 2023

The lateral load which is applied to the pile foundation supporting the superstructure during an earthquake is divided into the inertia force of the upper structure and the kinematic force of the ground. The inertia force and the kinematic force could cause failure to the pile foundation through different complex mechanisms. So it is necessary to predict and evaluate interaction of the ground-pile-structure properly for the seismic design of the foundation. The interaction is affected by the lateral behavior of the structure, the length of the pile, the boundary conditions of the head, and the relative density of the ground. Confining pressure and ground stiffness change accordingly when the relative density changes, and it results that the coefficient of subgrade reaction varies depending on each system. Horizontal bearing behavior and capacity of the pile foundation vary depending on lateral load condition and relative density of the sandy soil. Therefore, the 1g shaking table tests were conducted to confirm the effect of the relative density of the dried sandy soil to dynamic behavior of the group pile supporting the superstructure. The result shows that, as the relative density increases, maximum acceleration of the superstructure and the pile cap increases and decreases respectively, and the slope of the p-y curve of the pile decreases.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
• /
• v.17 no.6
• /
• pp.257-269
• /
• 2013

In this study, the capability of an existing analysis method for the fluid-structure-soil interaction of an offshore wind turbine is expanded to account for the geometric nonlinearity and sea water drag force. The geometric stiffness is derived to take care of the large displacement due to the deformation of the tower structure and the rotation of the footing foundation utilizing linearized stability analysis theory. Linearizing the term in Morison's equation concerning the drag force, its effects are considered. The developed analysis method is applied to the earthquake response analysis of a 5 MW offshore wind turbine. Parameters which can influence dynamic behaviors of the system are identified and their significance are examined.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.17 no.3
• /
• pp.295-308
• /
• 2004

In this study, several Soil-Structure-Interaction (SSI) analyses were performed using the developed FE-BE coupling method and the seismic response behavior of the structure's systems was determined. For the verification of the fundamental solution which is used in this analysis method, a dynamic analysis of the homogeneous ground was performed and it was compared to the results of Estorff et al. In order to verify the seismic response analysis, the results are compared with those of another commercial code. Several kindd of SSI analyses were performed and the seismic response associated with the rile foundation, seismic waves and a consideration of the ground nonlinearity were determined. As a result, it was found that the pile foundations didn't greatly helpful during the seismic event.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
• /
• 1999.04a
• /
• pp.267-274
• /
• 1999

Since the seismic response of dams can be strongly influenced by the dam-reservior interaction in needs to be taken into account in the seismic design of dams. In general a substructure method is employed to solve the dam-reservoir interaction problem in which the dam body is modeled with finite elements and the infinite region of a reservoir using a transmitting boundary. When the water is modeled as a compressible fluid the equation is formulated in frequency domain. But nonlinear behavior of dam body cannot be studied easily in the frequency domain method. In this study time domain formulation of the dam-reservoir-soil interaction is proposed based onthe lumped parameter modeling of the reservoir region, The frequency dependent dynamic-stiffness coefficients of the reservoir are converted into frequency independent lumped-parameters such as masses dampers and springs. The soil-structure interactionis modeled using lumped parameters in similar way. the ground is assumed as a visco-elastic stratum on the rigid bedrock. The dynamic stiffnesses of the rigid surface foundation are calculated using the hyperelement method and are converted into lumped parameters. The application example demonstrated that the lumped parameter model gives almost identical results with the frequency domain formulation.