Material damping vs. radiation damping in soil–structure interaction analysis

The main objective of this paper is to contribute to a quantification of the effect of soil damping on the most important design variables in the seismic response of building structures with prismatic rectangular foundations. A soil–structure interaction model was used for this purpose. The physical model of the structure is based on a general beam formulation. A lumped-parameter model was adopted to represent the soil and the interaction mechanisms. The seismic load was incorporated by ground acceleration records of many earthquakes. Finally, using the Correspondence Principle, the hysteretic and Voigt damping was incorporated into the soil model. Using the implemented models, a numerical study was carried out. The results obtained lead to an indirect assessment of the importance of energy dissipation due to soil material damping compared with the dissipation due to radiation damping.