Soil Foundation Structure Interaction




Preface
A topic of long standing interest to both structural and geotechnical engineers is traditionally known as soilstructure

interaction. For a long period this has involved linear elastic interaction between the foundation and the

underlying soil. The appropriate analysis for this case is well developed for both static and dynamic interaction. In

recent years there has been a growing interest in including the effects of nonlinear soil behavior in this modeling.

Probably the earliest application of these ideas in practice was to the representation of pile head lateral load

response using an array of nonlinear Winkler springs to model the interaction – an approach which continues to

be developed to the present time. In recent years there has been interest in considering nonlinear soil foundation

interaction in the design of shallowfoundations, both for static and dynamic loading. To distinguish this approach

from the classical linear elastic soil-structure interaction the termsoil-foundation-structure-interaction (SFSI) has

been coined recently. Another interesting aspect of this has been the development of shallow foundation macroelements

as an alternative to using finite elements, at least for design studies. These are single computational

entities that embrace, in a simplified way, the interaction between the soil and structure. Related SFSI work

involves retaining structures, particularly the representation of the passive resistance of bridge abutment walls.

Currently, the development of these approaches is occurring rapidly with many groups active in various parts

of the world. The Soil-Foundation-Structure Interaction Workshop (SFSI 09) held at the University of Auckland,

New Zealand from 26–27 November 2009 brought together representatives from several of these groups to

review the current state of development, discuss the potential for application in performance based design, and

consider how work in this area might develop in the next few years. The emphasis in the workshop was on

application of these ideas to the foundation design process.

The participation was by invitation. Our intention was to gather a good representation of those involved

in experimental investigation and physical modeling as well as those who have been involved in numerical

modelling. Given that the application of these ideas to foundation design will require interaction between the

structural and geotechnical communities, some structural engineers attended the workshop. In addition to paper

presentations, two discussion sessions aimed at eliciting important comments about the current state of our

understanding and to indicate which developments are likely to be most beneficial, were also conducted.

All participants were asked to prepare a paper describing their work. These preprints were circulated in pdf

form to those who planned to attend at least a month before the workshop to encourage thinking about the topics

to be addressed in the discussion sessions. After the event, the authors were then requested to revise their papers

to include some of the comments made during the workshop presentation.

The proceedings consist of 28 high quality papers from geotechnical and structural engineers and researchers

which have been individually refereed to check for relevance to the theme of the workshop as well as for quality

of technical content and presentation. In addition, full accounts of the two discussion sessions are also included

in this volume. The editors therefore hope that the papers presented in this workshop will further advance our

understanding of soil-foundation-structure interaction.


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