Abstract
The influence of vibrating buildings on the free-field ground motion could affect the earthquake recordings collected inside or nearby the buildings. Some evidences are known for large structures, but also small buildings could adversely affect the quality of the recordings. An example is given for a station of the Italian Accelerometric Network whose recordings show a clear mark of the frequency of the host building. To tackle this problem in a more general way, we performed numerical simulations whose first aim was to validate existing empirical evidence from a test site. Gallipoli et al. (Bull Seismol Soc Am 96:2457–2464, 2006) monitored a release test on a 2-storey R.C. building in Bagnoli (Italy), showing that a single vibrating building may affect the “free-field” motion with an influence that reaches 20% of peak ground acceleration. We re-analysed the data of that experiment following the Safak (Soil Dyn Earthq Eng 17:509–517, 1998) approach to building-soil motion, described as propagation of up- and down-going S-waves. The numerical model is a chain of single degree of freedom oscillators, whose dynamic behaviour depends on mass, stiffness and damping. The agreement between the synthetic and real data encouraged us to use this model to reproduce generalised structures as systems with a single degree of freedom. We run multiple tests varying the distance, between building and station, and the building-soil coupling, obtaining a statistical distribution of the influence of a single vibrating building on free-field ground motion taking into account the distance.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Bard P-Y, Gueguen P, Wirgin A (1996) A note on the seismic wavefield radiated from large building structures into soft soils, In: Proceedings of the eleventh world conference on earthquake engineering, Acapulco, Mexico, paper no. 1838
Barnaba C, Priolo E, Vuan A, Romanelli M (2007) Site effect of the strong-motion site at Tolmezzo-Ambiesta dam in Northeastern Italy. Bull Seismol Soc Am 97: 339–346. doi:10.1785/0120060077
Chavez-Garcia FJ, Cardenas-Soto M (2002) The contribution of the built environment to the free-field ground motion in Mexico city. Soil Dyn Earthq Eng 22: 773–780. doi:10.1016/S0267-7261(02)00098-2
Cornou C, Guéguen P, Bard P-Y, Haghshenas E (2004) Ambient noise energy bursts observation and modeling: Trapping of harmonic structure-soil induced-waves in a topmost sedimentary layer. J Seismol 8(4): 507–524. doi:10.1007/s10950-004-1980-7
Ditommaso R, Gallipoli MR, Mucciarelli M, Ponzo FC (2007). Effect of vibrating building on “free-field” ground motion: from the Bagnoli experiment to many—buildings simulation. In: Proceedings of the 4th international conference on earthquake geotechnology engineering, paper no. 1388. Springer, ISBN 978-1-4020-5893-6, CD-Rom edition
Ditommaso R, Parolai S, Mucciarelli M, Eggert S, Sobiesiak M, Zschau J (2009) Monitoring the response and the back-radiated energy of a building subjected to ambient vibration and impulsive action: the Falkenhof Tower (Potsdam Germany). Bull Earthq Eng (submitted to this issue)
Erlingsson S, Bodare A (1996) Live load induced vibrations in Ullevi stadium—dynamic soil analyis. Soil Dyn Earthq Eng 15: 171–188
Gallipoli MR, Mucciarelli M, Castro RR, Monachesi G, Contri P (2004) Structure, soilstructure response and effects of damage based on observations of horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratios of microtremors. Soil Dyn Earthq Eng 24: 487–495. doi:10.1016/j.soildyn.2003.11.009
Gallipoli MR, Mucciarelli M, Ponzo F, Dolce M, D’Alema E, Maistrello M (2006) Buildings as a seismic source: analysis of a release test at Bagnoli, Italy. Bull Seismol Soc Am 96: 2457–2464. doi:10.1785/0120060015
Guéguen P, Bard P-Y, Chavez-Garcia FJ (2002) Site-city seismic interaction in Mexico citylike environments: An analytic study. Bull Seismol Soc Am 92(2): 794–811. doi:10.1785/0120000306
Gueguen P, Bard P-Y (2005) Soil-structure and soil-structure-soil interaction: experimental evidence at the Volvi test site. J Earthq Eng 9(5): 657–693. doi:10.1142/S1363246905002092
Jennings PC (1970) Distant motion from a building vibration test. Bull Seismol Soc Am 60: 2037–2043
Kanamori H, Mori J, Anderson DL, Heaton TH (1991) Seismic excitation by the space shuttle Columbia. Nature 349: 781–782. doi:10.1038/349781a0
Kham M, Semblat J-F, Bard P-Y, Dangla P (2006) Seismic site—city interaction: main governing phenomena through simplified numerical models. Bull Seism Soc Am 96: 1934–1951
Laurenzano G, Priolo E, Gallipoli MR, Mucciarelli M, Ponzo FC (2009) Effect of vibrating buildings on free-field motion and on adjacent structures: the Bonefro (Italy) case history, submitted to Bull Seism Soc Am
Massa M, Marzorati S, Ladina C, Lovati S (2009) Urban seismic stations: soil-structure interaction assessment by spectral ratio analyses. Bull Earthq Eng, (submitted)
Mazzolani FM, Della Corte G, Faggiano B (2004) Seismic upgrading of RC buildings by means of advanced techniques: the ILVA-IDEM project. In: Proceedings of the 13th world conference on earthquake engineering, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, 1–6 Aug 2004, paper no. 2703, CD-Rom Edition
Mucciarelli M, Gallipoli MR, Ponzo FC, Dolce M (2003) Seismic waves generated by oscillating building. Soil Dyn Earthq Eng 23: 255–262. doi:10.1016/S0267-7261(03)00021-6
Mucciarelli M, Ditommaso R, Gallipoli MR, Ponzo F (2008). Effect of building–building interaction on “Free-Field” ground motion. Increasing seismic safety by combining engineering technologies and seismological data. Springer, Heidelberg, pp 141–145, ISBN 978-1-4020-9196-4
Şafak E (1998) New approach to analyzing soil-building systems. Soil Dyn Earthq Eng 17: 509–517. doi:10.1016/S0267-7261(98)00007-4
Şafak E (2006) Time-domain representation of frequency-dependent foundation impedance function. Soil Dyn Earthq Eng 26: 65–70. doi:10.1016/j.soildyn.2005.08.004
Wirgin A, Bard P-Y (1996) Effects of building on the duration and amplitude of ground motion in Mexico city. Bull Seismol Soc Am 86: 914–920
Wong HL, Trifunac MD (1975) Two dimensional antiplane building-soil-building interaction for two or more buildings and for incident plane SH waves. Bull Seismol Soc Am 65: 1863–1865
Working Group ITACA (2008). Data base of the Italian strong motion data: http://itaca.mi.ingv.it
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ditommaso, R., Mucciarelli, M., Gallipoli, M.R. et al. Effect of a single vibrating building on free-field ground motion: numerical and experimental evidences. Bull Earthquake Eng 8, 693–703 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-009-9134-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-009-9134-5