The relationship between the soil stiffness of mat and strip foundations

The soil-structure interaction is one of the most important challenges in the design of structures. This phenomenon is especially important for heavy and rigid structures built on flexible foundations. Soil-structure interaction can significantly change the seismic response of structures. Therefore, it is necessary to consider its effects in the dynamic responses of structures. There are different methods for modeling the soil-structure interaction phenomenon. One of these methods is using foundation springs for modelling soil part. This method is based on the Winkler model, which is widely used in the design of regulations. Due to the simplicity of this method, it is not possible to fully model a continuous environment such as soil. So in this paper, we used OPENSEES to model ۸ strip foundations with different widths and one mat foundation to compare their results. As a result, we formulated a relationship to convert the soil stiffness of mat foundation to strip foundations with different widths.

Keywords:

soil-structure interaction , mat foundation , strip foundation , foundation stiffness