Displacement Response of Multi-Storey Structures with Flexible Foundation due to Plane –Shear Waves Excitation

The present article investigates the response of multi-storey structures with soft ground floor due to the shear wave excitation. The whole building is assumed to rest on the flexible elastic foundation underlain by inhomogeneous elastic half-space. Using the eigenfunction expansion, analytical solutions are derived for a two-dimensional continuous building model. It is observed that the vibration experienced by the structural building with flexible foundation during an earthquake may be substantially different from the motion that the structure perceives in its absence. It has also been shown that the flexible foundation influences the passage of shear motion to such an extent that the motion causing disturbance in the ground floor cannot make any headway to the upper floors of the building.