Out-of-plane (SH) soil-structure interaction: a shear wall with rigid and flexible ring foundation

Soil-structure interaction (SSI) of a building and shear wall above a foundation in an elastic half-space has long been an important research subject for earthquake engineers and strong-motion seismologists. Numerous papers have been published since the early 1970s; however, very few of these papers have analytic closed-form solutions available. The soil-structure interaction problem is one of the most classic problems connecting the two disciplines of earthquake engineering and civil engineering. The interaction effect represents the mechanism of energy transfer and dissipation among the elements of the dynamic system, namely the soil subgrade, foundation, and superstructure. This interaction effect is important across many structure, foundation, and subgrade types but is most pronounced when a rigid superstructure is founded on a relatively soft lower foundation and subgrade. This effect may only be ignored when the subgrade is much harder than a flexible superstructure: for instance a flexible moment frame superstructure founded on a thin compacted soil layer on top of very stiff bedrock below. This paper will study the interaction effect of the subgrade and the superstructure. The analytical solution of the interaction of a shear wall, flexible-rigid foundation, and an elastic halfspace is derived for incident SH waves with various angles of incidence. It found that the flexible ring (soft layer) cannot be used as an isolation mechanism to decouple a superstructure from its substructure resting on a shaking half-space.