Embedded effects by forced vibration tests and analyses of a large-scale building model on the actual ground

Abstract

The forced vibration tests and the simulation analyses were performed for a large-scale RC building model constructed on the actual ground. The following findings were obtained for the embedded effects; 1) the displacement amplitude on the roof level of the embedded building model becomes less than half of that of the unembedded building model; 2) the response don't change so much, even when the width of MMR, a backfill material surrounding the model, is reduced from twice to 2/3 for the foundation width of the building model; 3) the responses characters obtained by the tests can be simulated well by the analyses in which the thin-layer element method and the 3-D FEM are combined for the surrounding soil.