Effect of Framing Action on Contact Stress and Differential Settlement

Abstract

This paper presents the effect of superstructure rigidity on contact stress and differential settlement. Usually designers calculate the normal force in columns or walls using structural software with hinged or fixed supports representing the foundations. Thus, they calculate the contact stress by dividing the normal forces of columns by the foundation area. This way neglects the effect of the superstructure rigidity on contact stress and corresponding differential settlement. Differential settlement affects the normal forces that resulted in the columns, which affects the differential settlement. This closed form formula is in need of an appropriate solution. The solution is to take the soil, foundation, and superstructure interaction into account during the structural analysis and soil study. It is not applicable to study soil without structure or study structure without soil. For buildings that fail from excessive settlement, it may be because of the effect of the soil structure interaction. In addition, the buildings that fail due to the failure of some structural members may be because of the miscalculation of secondary stresses on the structural members resulting from the soil structure interaction.