Effect of Vibrating Buildings on Free-Field Motion and on Adjacent Structures: The Bonefro (Italy) Case History

Abstract During the 2002 Molise sequence, a shock was recorded in a building that suffered heavy damage (Mucciarelli et al. , 2004). The availability of this data, along with other similar data, led to the organization of an international workshop for structural engineers aimed at the reproduction of the staged evolution of damage observed (A. Goretti and M. Mucciarelli, unpublished manuscript, 2007). The aim of this present work is to model the damaged building; the adjacent, less damaged building; and a large section of the subsoil. The model should provide some insight into two possible phenomena: (1) the soil–structure interaction (SSI), that is, the modification of the free-field seismic response induced by the presence of the buildings located on soft soil; and (2) the possible interaction between the two buildings. The study was performed using the 2D Chebyshev spectral element method (SPEM) for a 2D section. The model, with topography, includes the bedrock (limestone) with the overlaying clay layer, circa 30 m. The building is modeled by an equivalent shear-wave velocity, which is calculated from its identified mechanical properties. First, the model’s ability to reproduce the motions recorded inside and outside the building was verified. Then, one or both of the buildings were removed to study their effect. The influence of the presence of buildings on the free-field motion is about 40% on spectral values, and it is felt up to a distance of about 250 m from the buildings. The results also suggest the presence of resonance between buildings.

[1]  Pierre-Yves Bard,et al.  Experimental and Numerical Analysis of Soil Motions Caused by Free Vibrations of a Building Model , 2000 .

[2]  Maria Rosaria Gallipoli,et al.  Structure, soil-structure response and effects of damage based on observations of horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratios of microtremors , 2004 .

[3]  Mihailo D. Trifunac,et al.  Impulse response analysis of the Van Nuys 7‐storey hotel during 11 earthquakes and earthquake damage detection , 2008 .

[4]  Mihailo D. Trifunac,et al.  Interaction of a shear wall with the soil for incident plane SH waves , 1972 .

[5]  Géza Seriani,et al.  Numerical simulation of interface waves by high‐order spectral modeling techniques , 1992 .

[6]  Pierre-Yves Bard,et al.  Effects of buildings on the duration and amplitude of ground motion in Mexico City , 1996, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

[7]  Felice Carlo Ponzo,et al.  Seismic waves generated by oscillating buildings: analysis of a release test , 2003 .

[8]  P. C. Jennings.  Distant motions from a building vibration test , 1970, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

[9]  P. Guéguen,et al.  SOIL-STRUCTURE AND SOIL-STRUCTURE-SOIL INTERACTION: EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE AT THE VOLVI TEST SITE , 2005 .

[10]  Cécile Cornou,et al.  Ambient noise energy bursts observation and modeling: Trapping of harmonic structure-soil induced–waves in a topmost sedimentary layer , 2004 .

[11]  Felice Carlo Ponzo,et al.  Short Note Buildings as a Seismic Source: Analysis of a Release Test at Bagnoli, Italy , 2006 .

[12]  Mihailo D. Trifunac,et al.  Two-dimensional, antiplane, building-soil-building interaction for two or more buildings and for incident planet SH waves , 1975 .

[13]  Mihailo D. Trifunac,et al.  Earthquake damage detection in the Imperial County Services Building III: Analysis of wave travel times via impulse response functions , 2008 .

[14]  Géza Seriani,et al.  LOW AND HIGH ORDER FINITE ELEMENT METHOD: EXPERIENCE IN SEISMIC MODELING , 1994 .

[15]  Maria I. Todorovska,et al.  Soil-Structure System Identification of Millikan Library North–South Response during Four Earthquakes (1970–2002): What Caused the Observed Wandering of the System Frequencies? , 2009 .

[16]  Maria Rosaria Gallipoli,et al.  Non-parametric analysis of a single seismometric recording to obtain building dynamic parameters , 2007 .

[17]  G. Laurenzano,et al.  Numerical Modeling of the 13 December 1990 M 5.8 East Sicily Earthquake at the Catania Accelerometric Station , 2005 .

[18]  Mihailo D. Trifunac,et al.  Earthquake damage detection in the Imperial County Services Building I: The data and time–frequency analysis , 2007 .

[19]  D. L. Anderson,et al.  Seismic excitation by the space shuttle Columbia , 1991, Nature.

[20]  Enrico Priolo.  EARTHQUAKE GROUND MOTION SIMULATION THROUGH THE 2-D SPECTRAL ELEMENT METHOD , 2001 .

[21]  Maria I. Todorovska,et al.  Seismic Interferometry of a Soil-Structure Interaction Model with Coupled Horizontal and Rocking Response , 2009 .

[22]  Géza Seriani,et al.  Spectral element method for acoustic wave simulation in heterogeneous media , 1994 .

[23]  G. Grünthal.  European macroseismic scale 1998 : EMS-98 , 1998 .

[24]  Thomas H. Heaton,et al.  The Observed Wander of the Natural Frequencies in a Structure , 2006 .

[25]  Angelo Masi,et al.  Analysis of RC Building Dynamic Response and Soil-Building Resonance Based on Data Recorded during a Damaging Earthquake (Molise, Italy, 2002) , 2004 .