Soil-Structure Interaction Effects on a Regional Scale through Ground-Motion Simulations and Reduced Order Models: A Case Study from the 2008 Mw 5.4 Chino Hills Mainshock

Abstract

We demonstrate the effects of soil–structure interaction (SSI) for three idealized building typologies on a regional scale, using a simulated earthquake scenario of the 2008 Mw 5.4 Chino Hills mainshock in southern California as an example. All the three buildings lie on shallow foundations, and they are subject to three-component simulated ground motions. To carry out this task, we develop a reduced order model (ROM) for each building typology that accounts for the effects of SSI on the building system in the time domain. We specifically use ensemble Kalman inversion (EnKI) to extract the soil impedance values from fully coupled soil–foundation–structure interaction simulations; and we interpolate the EnKI results to derive analytical functions that span the range of applicability of the soil impedance model. We then verify our ROMs by comparing results to fully coupled soil–foundation–structure interaction simulations, also known as direct modeling methods. We finally populate the simulation grid across southern California with the verified building ROMs, and interpret the responses in the form of maps that represent urban-scale effects of SSI on the seismic demand parameters such as maximum displacement, acceleration, and interstory drift. We also identify areas where the effects of SSI, given the resonant characteristics of a specific building, the foundation typology, and the local site conditions, lead to higher seismic demand relative to the fixed-base response.

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