Effect of Shear Wall in the Seismic Analysis of Building Frames Considering Soil Structure Interaction-A Study by Winklerian Approach

The significance of incorporating soil-structure interaction (SSI) effect in the analysis of building frames is increasingly recognized but, still not penetrated to all the level owing to various complexities involved in the modeling of SSI. The SSI effect considerably influences the design of multi-storey buildings situated in the seismic zone. Hence, there is a need to incorporate certain elements in the structure which will counterbalance the effect of SSI. The provision of shear walls is one of the potential option as these acts as major earthquake resisting element and also, increases the overall stiffness of the structure. The geometrical configuration of these shear walls alters the response of buildings, and therefore, it is important to evaluate the most beneficial locations of the shear walls. In present study, multi-storey reinforced concrete framed buildings of different heights with shear wall at five alternate locations in the building incorporating the effect of soil flexibility is considered to investigate the effectiveness of shear walls to control SSI. The study is carried out using Winklerian approach. The study reveals that, shear walls play important role to control SSI effect and very effective when placed centrally, near to centroid of building in resisting seismic load.