Effect of Soil Saturation on Seismic Performance of a Structure: A Numerical Approach

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of soil saturation on the seismic performance of a structure whensubjected to earthquake-induced vibration. More specifically, this paper examines the effect of the soil saturationlevel taking into account of soil-structure interaction (SSI) on the structural response. For this purpose, a twodimensional (2D) finite element model was developed with Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion under plane-strainconditions using geotechnical finite element code PLAXIS. To emphasize SSI problems in civil engineeringapplications, mechanical behavior and various saturation levels of the local soil condition is examined using anumerical model. As can seen from the analysis results, the saturation level of soils causes an increase on the lateralroof displacement of the saturated elasto-plastic soil. This situation was interpreted as the increase in the saturationlevels of the soils caused a decrease in the rigidity. Furthermore, neglecting the effect of SSI leads to underestimatedresults of the structural behavior.