A structural design comparison between two reinforced concrete regular 6-level buildings using soil-structure interaction in linear range

Structural engineers commonly design superstructures as fixed at the base and transmit the reactions to the infrastructure in order to design the foundation system and estimate the displacement of the soil while disregarding the change in seismic response that this induces. In this article, the foundation system was transformed into equivalent springs, and the seismic response in the linear range was compared and quantified, obtaining results such as increased periods, increased amounts of steel reinforcement in beams (between 7% and 25%) and columns (between 29% and 39%), an increase in the number of stirrups per linear meter (between 3% and 11% in columns and between 5% and 45% in beams) and drifts (between 1% and 14%), and a decrease in basal shear (up to 20%), which directly affects the design of the structure. This study concludes that the inclusion of the soil-structure interaction is necessary for structural design in the linear range.