Seismic response of a rigid foundation embedded in a viscoelastic soil by taking into account the soil-foundation interaction

This study analyses the seismic response of a three-dimensional (3-D) rigid massless square foundation resting or embedded in a viscoelastic soil limited by rigid bedrock. The foundation is subjected to harmonic oblique seismic waves P, SV, SH and R. The key step is the characterization of the soil-foundation interaction by computing the impedance matrix and the input motion matrix. A 3-D frequency boundary element method (BEM) in conjunction with the thin layer method (TLM) is adapted for the seismic analysis of the foundation. The dynamic response of the rigid foundation is solved from the wave equations by taking into account the soil-foundation interaction. The solution is formulated using the frequency BEM with the Green's function obtained from the TLM. This approach has been applied to analyze the effect of soil-structure interaction on the seismic response of the foundation as a function of the kind of incident waves, the angles of incident waves, the wave's frequencies and the embedding of foundation. The parametric results show that the non-vertical incident waves, the embedment of foundation, and the wave's frequencies have important impact on the dynamic response of rigid foundations.