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On the seismic response of under-designed caisson foundations

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Abstract

The seismic behaviour of caisson foundations supporting typical bridge piers is analysed with 3D finite elements, with due consideration to soil and interface nonlinearities. Single-degree-of freedom oscillators of varying mass and height, simulating heavily and lightly loaded bridge piers, founded on similar caissons are studied. Four different combinations of the static (\(\text{ FS }_\mathrm{V}\)) and seismic (\(\text{ FS }_\mathrm{E}\)) factors of safety are examined: (1) a lightly loaded (\(\text{ FS }_\mathrm{V}= 5\)) seismically under-designed (\(\text{ FS }_\mathrm{E} < 1\)) caisson, (2) a lightly loaded seismically over-designed (\(\text{ FS }_\mathrm{E} >1\)) caisson, (3) a heavily loaded (\(\text{ FS }_\mathrm{V} = 2.5\)) seismically under-designed (\(\text{ FS }_\mathrm{E} < 1\)) caisson and (4) a heavily loaded seismically over-designed caisson. The analysis is performed with use of seismic records appropriately modified so that the effective response periods (due to soil-structure-interaction effects) of the studied systems correspond to the same spectral acceleration, thus allowing their inelastic seismic performance to be compared on a fair basis. Key performance measures of the systems are then contrasted, such as: accelerations, displacements, rotations and settlements. It is shown that the performance of the lightly loaded seismically under-designed caisson is advantageous: not only does it reduce significantly the seismic load to the superstructure, but it also produces minimal residual displacements of the foundation. For heavily loaded foundations, however (\(\text{ FS }_{V} = 2.5\)), the performance of the two systems (over and under designed) is similar.

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Acknowledgments

A. Zafeirakos acknowledges the financial support from the European Union (European Social Fund—ESF) and Greek national funds through the Operational Program “Education and Lifelong Learning” of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF)—Research Funding Program: Heracleitus II. Investing in knowledge society through the European Social Fund. N. Gerolymos acknowledges the financial support from the research project “DARE” funded by the European Research Council’s Programme “Ideas” in support for Frontier Research, under Contract number ERC-2008-AdG 228254-DARE. The authors are thankful to Professor George Gazetas for his valuable comments on the paper.

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  1. National Technical University, Athens, Greece

    Athanasios Zafeirakos & Nikos Gerolymos

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  1. Athanasios Zafeirakos
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  2. Nikos Gerolymos
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Correspondence to Nikos Gerolymos.

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Zafeirakos, A., Gerolymos, N. On the seismic response of under-designed caisson foundations. Bull Earthquake Eng 11, 1337–1372 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-013-9465-0

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