Optimization of frequency domain impedances for time-domain response analyses of building structures with rigid shallow foundations

The effects of dynamic soil–structure interaction (SSI) have been extensively studied in the last few decades, and proper analysis for the linear elastic case in frequency domain has been established successfully. However, SSI is rarely considered in the design of building structures, and instead, buildings are frequently analyzed using a rigid base assumption and quasi-static loading conditions that ignore SSI and its dynamic nature. Acknowledging these shortcomings, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published in 2012 a set of recommendations on time-domain analyses of SSI for building structures compatible with standard finite element packages for consideration in engineering design. The so-called NIST GCR 12-917-21 report introduced a major simplification to enable frequency domain tools to be implemented in time domain analyses. That is, replacing the frequency-dependent soil impedance functions by a single-valued functions read at the flexible-base structure frequency; This work seeks to quantify the accuracy of this simplification considering fully coupled two-dimensional (2D) finite element models (FEM) as the reference. Using a Bayesian approach based on ensemble Kalman inversion (EnKI) and a range of numerical simulations of soil–foundation–building interaction, we estimate the optimal frequency that can be used to estimate soil impedance for time domain analyses; and we evaluate the improvement that the corresponding impedance offers relative to the full FEM results when compared to time domain analyses performed in accordance to the NIST recommendations outlined above.