SOIL-STRUCTURE INTERACTION MODELLING IN PERFORMANCE-BASED SEISMIC JETTY DESIGN

The importance of performance based design approaches and soil structure interaction in seismic design of structures are internationally recognized. Soil-structure interaction is a key factor that has to be considered in design, particularly for retaining structures and structures with deep foundations, such as jetties. However, seismic design standards hardly provide any straight forward tools for engineers to account for soil-structure interaction in design. This study therefore was initiated, aiming at the development of a efficient performance-based design approach that can be applied by engineers. Currently available design methods are investigated and the performance of simple and more advanced methods are assessed by means of a comparative study. Based on a case study a promising and efficient decoupled approach is proposed in which dynamic analysis of site and structure are decoupled. With this approach one is able to efficiently assess the structure dynamic response, even for more complex structure geometries.