Despite the complexity of real earthquake motions, the incident wavefield excitation for soil-structure interaction (SSI) analysis is conventionally derived from one-dimensional site response analysis (1D SRA), resulting in idealized, decoupled vertically incident shear and compressional waves for the horizontal and vertical components of the wavefield, respectively. Recent studies have revealed potentially significant deviation of the 1D free-field predictions from the actual three-dimensional (3D) site response and obtained physical insights into the mechanistic deficiencies of this simplified approach. Particularly, when applied to vertical motion estimation, 1D SRA can lead to consistent overprediction due to the refraction of inclined S waves in the actual wavefield that is not correctly accounted for in the idealized vertical P wave propagation model. However, in addition to the free-field site response, seismic demands on structures and non-structural components are also influenced by the dynamic characteristics of the structure and SSI effects. The extent to which the utilization of vertically propagating waves influences the structural system response is currently not well understood. With the recent realization of high-performance broadband physics-based 3D ground motion simulations, this study evaluates the impact of incident wavefield modeling on SSI analysis of representative building structures based on two essential ingredients: (1) realistic spatially dense simulated ground motions in shallow sedimentary basins as the reference incident motions for the local SSI model and (2) high-fidelity direct modeling of the soil-structure system that fully honors the complexity of the incident seismic waves. Numerical models for a suite of archetypal two-dimensional (2D) multi-story building frames were developed to study their seismic response under the following incident wavefield modeling conditions: (1) SSI models with reference incident waves from the 3D earthquake simulation, (2) SSI models with idealized vertically incident waves based on 1D SRA, and (3) conventional fixed-base models with base translational motions from 1D SRA. The impact of these modeling choices on various structural and non-structural demands is investigated and contrasted. The results show that, for the horizontal direction, the free-field linear and nonlinear site amplification and subsequent dynamic filtering of the base motions within the structure can be reasonably captured by the assumed vertically propagating shear waves. This leads to generally fair agreements for structural demands controlled by horizontal motions, including peak inter-story drifts and yielding of structural components. In contrast, vertical seismic demands on structures are overpredicted in most cases when using the 1D wavefields and can result in exacerbated structural damage. Special attention should be given to the potentially severe vertical floor accelerations predicted by the 1D approach due to the combined effects of fictitious free-field site amplification and significant vertical dynamic amplification along the building height. This can pose unrealistic challenges to seismic certification of acceleration-sensitive secondary equipment necessary for structural and operational functionality and containment barrier design of critical infrastructures. It is also demonstrated that vertical SSI effects can be more significant than those in the horizontal direction due to the large vertical structural stiffness and should be considered in vertical floor acceleration assessments, especially for massive high-rise buildings.
The study of vibration isolation devices has become an emerging area of research in view of the extensive damage to buildings caused by earthquakes. The ability to effectively isolate seismic vibrations and maintain the stability of a building is thus addressed in this paper, which evaluates the effect of horizontal ground excitation on the response of a structure isolated by a coupled isolation system consisting of a non-linear damper (QZS) and a friction pendulum system (FPS). A single-degree-of-freedom system was used to model structures whose bases are subjected to seismic excitation in order to assess the effectiveness of the QZS-FPS coupling in reducing the structural response. The results obtained revealed significant improvements in structural performance when the QZS-FPS system uses a damper of optimum stiffness. A 30% reduction in displacement was recorded compared with QZS alone for two signals, one harmonic and the other stochastic. The response of the QZS-FPS system with soft stiffness to a harmonic pulse reveals amplitudes reaching around eight times those of the pulse at low frequencies and approaching zero at high frequencies. In comparison, the rigid QZS-FPS coupling has amplitudes 0.9 and 3.5 times higher than those of the harmonic signal. Thus, the resonance amplitudes observed for the QZS-FPS system are lower than those reported in other studies. This analysis highlights the performance differences between the two types of stiffness in the face of harmonic pulses, underlining the importance of the choice of stiffness in vibration management applications. The stochastic results show that on both hard and soft soils, the new QZS-FPS system causes structures to vibrate horizontally with maximum amplitudes of the order of 0.003 m and 0.007 m respectively. So, QZS-FPS coupling can be more effective than all other isolators for horizontal ground excitation. In addition, the study demonstrated that the QZS-FPS combination can offer better control of building vibration in terms of horizontal displacements.
Mumbai is an elongated island city and spreading towards northern side as the southern side is sea face. Mumbai Metro Line 3 (MML-3) project corridor from Colaba to Seepz, is fully underground metro of a total length 33.5 km twin tunnel. In this project, 17 nos. of TBMs deployed to construct the tunnel. The tunnel is excavated through Basalt underlying filled up material and soil strata (sandy and clayey). A systematic instrument arrays are installed along the tunnel alignment to monitoring at the ground, on the ground and in the tunnel, existing buildings along the tunnel alignment in the influence zone (both side of tunnel alignment) as per monitoring scheme. Monitoring of instruments was done as per the frequency required for tunnelling activities based on the excavation stages and to acquire the recorded data. Based on the monitoring data and their interpretation, design modification has been done to achieve safe tunnelling which is the first and foremost requirement in urban tunnelling. This paper highlights the surface settlement at the ground surface and in the tunnel excavated zone due to tunnelling.