Numerical simulation of liquefaction effects on seismic SSI

The present paper deals with the influence of soil non-linearity, introduced by soil liquefaction, on the soil–foundation–structure interaction phenomena. The objective is to reveal the beneficial or unfavourable effects of the non-linear SSI on both structural drift and settlement of a given structure. Factors such as the signal modification due to liquefaction, and ratios of fundamental frequencies of soil, structure and signal may play an important role on the damage of the structure. The importance of each of these factors is evaluated through a significant parametric study. A 2D coupled finite element modelling is carried out using an elastoplastic multi-mechanism model to represent the soil behaviour. This paper presents the research work we did in the framework of the European Community project NEMISREF (New methods of mitigation of seismic risk on existing foundations, GRDI-40457), to study possible retrofitting measures using GEFDYN computational tools.