Predicting the response of buildings to ground vibrations with imperfect knowledge on local subsoil conditions

In environmental induced vibrations dynamic soil-structure interaction determines both the forces generated by the excitation source and the response of the building to the incident wave field. However, the knowledge of subsoil conditions is usually incomplete, affecting adversely the response predictions of deterministic computational models. A probabilistic computational model is presented suitable for the analysis of the dynamic soil-structure interaction problem. Specifically, the building and a limited bounded volume of subsoil in its vicinity are modeled with functionally graded finite elements, allowing to consider heterogeneous local subsoil conditions. This part of subsoil is modeled as a three-dimensional constrained stochastic field. The unboundedness of the surrounding soil is accounted for by coupling the finite element model with perfectly matched layers. An incident wave field is incorporated in the finite element-perfectly matched layers model without explicitly including the source in the computational domain by decomposing the displacement field of the soil. The methodology is illustrated with a case study. The uncertainty of the structural response varies over frequency bands but as a general trend increases for higher frequencies.

ISBN:9789073802940

Publication year:2016

BOF-keylabel:yes

IOF-keylabel:yes

Authors from:Higher Education