Seismic evaluation of soil–foundation–superstructure system considering geometry and material nonlinearities of both soils and structures

In this paper, in order to increase the accuracy of numerical simulations using finite element methods related to soil–structure interaction problems, the influence of the geometric and material nonlinearities of structures was carefully investigated. By introducing proper models dealing with the geometric and material nonlinearities of structures, the authors have proposed a numerical method for the modeling of the nonlinearity of soils that have been carefully investigated in past research, and also for the modeling of structures based on finite deformation schemes. The accuracy of the numerical analysis related to the structures was firstly verified with an Abaqus (2008) calculation. The calculation was conducted with a program named DBLEAVES (Ye, 2007 and Ye, 2011). Furthermore, 2D soil–water coupled dynamic analyses, in the finite deformation schemes of both soils and structures, were conducted on a soil-group pile foundation–superstructure system to investigate the seismic behavior of an elevated bridge during a major earthquake, in which strong nonlinear behavior of geometry and material are expected for both the soils and the structures. The applicability of the proposed numerical method to soil–structure interaction problems encountered in many fields of geotechnical and structural engineering was carefully checked. The main purpose of the research is to propose a numerical method by which it is possible to describe the soil–structure interaction problems with a level of accuracy that can satisfy the needs of both the geotechnical and structural engineering fields.