Assessment of Soil-Structure-Interaction by measurement

In common buildings the soil-structure-interaction (SSI) is governed by the elastic behaviour of the building. The best conditions to see the soil effect predominate would be a dynamic rigid body movement of a massive building. For this reason measurements were carried out on an old anti-aircraft tower from World War II on typical Viennese soil conditions. The dynamic properties of the soil could be determined in two different ways. The first one is the common way using the dispersion of the Rayleigh waves on the soil surface and the back calculation to shear wave profiles. The second approach is the back calculation of the soil stiffness based on the soil-structure-interaction. With the simultaneous measurement of the dynamic movement of the building the kinematic behaviour of the SSI could be determined. The tilting oscillations of the tower in both directions with different frequencies transmitted to the soil could be measured in the surroundings. The decay of these vibrations and their influence on the H/V-method results was studied. The results of the dynamic measurements were compared with different methods of numerical simulation. The benefits and the disadvantages of the methods can be compared. The calculation values of the numerical models could be calibrated with the real dynamic properties of the measured SSI-system.