Damage probability assessment for adjoining buildings to deep excavations in soft soils

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this paper, to assess damage probabilities on neighbouring buildings related to deep excavations in soft soils, a combination of numerical and probabilistic methods is used through random field-based finite element modelling. Constitutive models Hardening Soil and Hardening Soil Small Strain were used to model soft soil behaviour, and selected parameters E0 ref and E50 ref were represented as random variables and random fields. Damage probability assessment analyses were performed for a synthetic excavation in Bogotá soft soils. The results indicate a significant increase in assessed probabilities when not considering soil stiffness at small strains. Slight to moderate effects were found when changing the simulated construction sequence, using random-variable based models or changing the anisotropy ratio in random field-based models, except in highly anisotropic random fields. Building damage potential distribution depend on boundary conditions, and they are different when changing the constitutive model employed or the simulated construction sequence.