The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Two-dimensional hybrid modelling of soil-structure interaction

Tzong, Tsair-jyh; Gupta, Sunil; Penzien, Joseph

UCB/EERC-81/11, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1981-08, 59 pages (535/T988/1981)

A hybrid model formed by partitioning a soil-structure system into a near-field and a far-field has been successfully exploited in the analysis of three-dimensional soil-structure interaction problems. The near-field, which consists of the structure and a finite region of soil around it, is modeled by means of the finite element method. The far-field, which accounts for the loss of energy due to stress waves traveling away from the foundation, is modeled through continuous impedance functions. The main purpose of this investigation is to complement previous research on three-dimensional hybrid modeling by employing the same technique to the two-dimensional case. To determine the two-dimensional, frequency-dependent impedance functions, a method of system identification is used to ensure that the resulting hybrid model reproduces the known compliances of an infinite rigid strip on an elastic halfspace. These impedance functions are employed to calculate the compliances of the strip for different R/a ratios. Good agreement between the computed and known compliances is obtained.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-81-11.pdf (1 MB)