Effect of soil stiffness on seismic response of reinforced concrete buildings with shear walls

Buildings are subjected to lateral loads caused by wind, blasting and earthquakes. The high stresses developed by these loads literally tear the building components apart, which are in general designed for gravity loads. To resist these lateral forces, shear walls can be introduced in buildings. Present study aims to determine the apt shear wall position which attracts the least earthquake forces in symmetric plan multi-storey buildings. Dynamic response of a structure is significantly influenced by the underlying soil due to its natural ability to deform. Three dimensional finite element soil–structure interaction analyses of reinforced concrete shear wall buildings with shear walls placed at various locations is carried out in time domain using scaled down Elcentro ground motion to determine the seismic response variation in the structure due to the effect of stiffness of soil. Four different soil types based on shear wave velocity and six varying shear wall positions in multi-storey buildings up to 16 storeys are considered to determine the effect of soil–structure interaction. From the study, it is found that structural response as per conventional fixed base condition is very conservative. For buildings founded on soil with V s ≤ 300 m/s, providing the shear walls at the core is advantageous whereas for soil with V s > 300 m/s, the shear walls placed at exterior corners of the building attracts the least earthquake force.