Evaluation of Seismic Performance and Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI) for Piloti-Type Buildings considering Korean Geotechnical Conditions

Piloti-type structure is a popular architectural style consisting of only columns or minimum number of shear-resisting walls on the first floor. The large difference in lateral stiffness between the first and the upper floors makes the structure very vulnerable to earthquakes. Through the recent earthquakes in Gyeongju (2016) and Pohang (2017), due to such structural disadvantages, many damage cases have been reported, especially in low-rise piloti-type buildings with five stories or less. In this study, seismic soil-structure interaction (SSI) analysis is conducted on low-rise piloti-type buildings considering Korean geotechnical characteristics, and the effect is analytically evaluated. To achieve this goal, seismic SSI analysis applying the measured Gyeongju earthquake and design response spectrum (DRM) based on the architectural design codes are conducted by constructing three-dimensional structural analysis models with a five-story piloti-type building and four different soil properties: fill (FI), alluvial soil (AS), weathered soil (WS), and weathered rock (WR). From the analysis results, it is found that WS soil is largely affected by the seismic SSI, and the influence of the seismic SSI is different for each soil type regardless of the type of earthquake. Through the parameter study, simple and reasonable estimates are proposed to consider the SSI effect on the base shear in low-rise piloti-type buildings.

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