Centrifuge shaking table tests on a friction pendulum bearing isolated structure with a pile foundation in soft soil

Previous studies have shown that pile-soil interactions have significant influences on the isolation efficiency of an isolated structure. However, most of the existing tests were carried out using a 1-g shaking table, which cannot reproduce the soil stresses resulting in distortion of the simulated pile-soil interactions. In this study, a centrifuge shaking table modelling of the seismic responses of a friction pendulum bearing isolated structure with a pile foundation under earthquakes were conducted. The pile foundation structure was designed and constructed with a scale factor of 1:100. Two layers of the foundation soil, i.e., the bottom layer was made of plaster and the upper layer was normal soil, were carefully prepared to meet the similitude requirement. Seismic responses, including strains, displacement, acceleration, and soil pressure were collected. The settlement of the soil, sliding of the isolator, dynamic amplification factor and bending moment of the piles were analysed to reveal the influence of the soil structure interaction on the seismic performance of the structure. It is found that the soil rotates significantly under earthquake motions and the peak rotation is about 0.021 degree under 24.0 g motions. The isolator cannot return to the initial position after the tests because of the unrecoverable deformation of the soil and the friction between the curved surface of the slider and the concave plate.