Influence of Soil Flexibility on Seismic Behavior of RC Buildings with Shear Wall

Abstract

The seismic response of a structure is very complex owing to the behavior of soils during an earthquake. The importance of including the soil–structure interaction (SSI) effect in building frame analysis is quickly recognized, but the modeling of SSI is complicated. The present paper investigates the seismic response of a RC building incorporating soil–structure interaction. The research focuses on clayey soil conditions in situ, taking into account soft, medium, and hard soil. The SSI effect is accounted for by using a point spring element and a fixed support condition. For the study, a RC ground (G)+10-story building with a basement is considered with L-shape (L-SW) and T-shape (T-SW) shear walls resting on a raft foundation. To comprehend the different circumstances of the soil on the structure for comparison study, the responses of some parameters such as story drift, story displacement, and base shear are obtained. The findings of the study show that including SSI effects in the seismic design of multistory buildings is critical because it can result in a significant reduction in controlling design forces without compromising the structure’s safety. Moreover, assuming a fixed base can lead to a high overestimation of the structure design forces and seismic response. The aim of the present study is to obtain the behavior of the RC building under different soil conditions considering two types of shear walls.