Assessing the soil-structure interaction effects by direct method on the out-of-plane behavior of masonry structures (case study: Arge-Tabriz)

Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI) is an outstanding factor that influences the linear and nonlinear performance of any structure, and it can be taken into account as one of the most important and effective considerations on the seismic behavior of buildings. On the other hand, historic masonry buildings are specific and important structures, which are significantly affected by SSI. Preservation of these buildings is one of the main demands of every culture and every society; and evaluating the behavior of these buildings under natural events such as earthquake, considering aforementioned SSI phenomenon, is an essential step, in this regard. In this paper, the impact of SSI on the out-of-plane behavior of an ancient building in Iran, named Arge-Tabriz, has been investigated utilizing Finite Element Method (FEM). Modal and nonlinear Time-History (TH) analyses results revealed that SSI has a significant decreasing effect on the acceleration response due to removing the effective mode vectors from the resonance area of the acceleration response spectra. On the contrary, SSI has a remarkable increasing impact on the displacement response of Arg's walls according to the displacement response spectra.