Seismic loading response of piled systems on soft soils - Influence of the Rayleigh damping

An accurate analysis of structures supported on soft soils and subjected to seismic loading requires the consideration of the soil-foundation-structure interaction. An important aspect of this interaction lies with the energy dissipation due to soil material damping. Unlike advanced constitutive models that can induce energy loss, the use of simple elastoplastic constitutive models requires additional damping. The frequency dependent Rayleigh damping is a formulation that is frequently used in dynamic analysis. The main concern of this formulation is the correct selection of the target damping ratio and the frequency range where the response is frequency independent. The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of the Rayleigh damping parameters in soil-pile-structure and soil-inclusion-platform-structure systems in the presence of soft soil under seismic loading. Three-dimensional analyses of both systems are carried out using the finite difference software Flac3D. Different values of target damping ratios and minimum frequencies are utilized. Several earthquakes are used to study the influence of different excitation frequencies in the systems. The soil response in terms of accelerations, displacements and strains is obtained. For the rigid elements, the results are presented in terms of bending moments and normal forces. The results show that when the frequency of the input motion is close to the minimum (central) frequency in the Rayleigh damping formulation, the overdamping amount is reduced, and the surface spectral acceleration of the analyzed pile and inclusion systems increases. Thus, the bending moments and normal forces throughout the piles and inclusions also increase.