Analysis of nonhomogeneous soil-structure interaction using BEM-FEM coupling

Author(s)

Valério da Silva Almeida

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Carlos.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos (EESC/SBD)
• Defense date: 2003-04-25

Examining board members

João Batista de Paiva; Nelson Aoki; Humberto Breves Coda; Leandro Palermo Junior; Gabriel de Oliveira Ribeiro

• Advisor: João Batista de Paiva

Abstract

The analysis of the soil-structure system interaction is a vast field of interest in the area of civil engineering. A realistic representation of its behaviour. Thus, in the present research, the soil is considered a non-homogeneous continuum supported by a rigid and adhesive interface and modelled by boundary element method via Kelvin solution in 3D space. The foundation is also modelled by this above-mentioned modelling technique. The raft foundation and the superstructure are represented by finite shell and 3D frame elements. In order to estimate the accuracy and the potentiality of the proposed numerical formulation, some examples are validated when compared to similar approaches, and others simulations are presented to stress the necessity of coupling the non-homogeneous soil-foundation-radier-superstructure system as a whole. Finally, to acquire numerical time efficiency, it is shown that it is imperative to apply parallel processing and sparse techniques for the solution of the final system. (AU)