Dynamic structure–soil–structure interaction between nearby piled buildings under seismic excitation by BEM–FEM model

The dynamic through–soil interaction between nearby pile supported structures in a viscoelastic half-space, under incident S and Rayleigh waves, is numerically studied. To this end, a three-dimensional viscoelastic BEM–FEM formulation for the dynamic analysis of piles and pile groups in the frequency domain is used, where soil is modelled by BEM and piles are simulated by one-dimensional finite elements as Bernoulli beams. This formulation has been enhanced to include the presence of linear superstructures founded on pile groups, so that structure–soil–structure interaction (SSSI) can be investigated making use of a direct methodology with an affordable number of degrees of freedom. The influence of SSSI on lateral spectral deformation, vertical and rotational response, and shear forces at pile heads, for several configurations of shear one-storey buildings, is addressed. Maximum response spectra are also presented. SSSI effects on groups of structures with similar dynamic characteristics have been found to be important. The system response can be either amplified or attenuated according to the distance between adjacent buildings, which has been related to dynamic properties of the overall system.