AN EFFICIENT TIME-DOMAIN SOIL STRUCTURE INTERACTION ANALYSIS BASED ON THE DYNAMIC STIFFNESS OF AN UNBOUNDED SOIL

An approximate method and a rigorous method are presented for the time-domain soil-structure interaction analysis, both of which use the stiffness of soil obtained numerically or experimentally in the limited frequency range. In the aseismic design of a large-scale structure, the approximate and rigorous methods are intended to be used in a preliminary analysis and a detailed study, respectively. Both methods are based on the approximation that the first few terms of the Fourier or Taylor expansions of a frequency-dependent function are used. The difference lies in the number of coefficients of each series, and also in the manner in which the coefficients can be determined. In order to demonstrate the validity of the proposed methods, a soil-structure system, whose soil has a complex profile under the foundation, is analysed. The dynamic stiffness of the soil is calculated by a 3-D hybrid approach that combines the finite element method and the boundary element method. As a result, the present methods are capable of evaluating the complexity of the soil more precisely and efficiently than conventional methods.