Numerical investigations of structure-soil-structure interaction on footing forces due to adjacent building

The interaction between multiple structures through the supporting soil media, known as structure-soil-structure interaction (SSSI), has become an increasingly important issue due to rapid urbanization. There is a need to investigate the effect of SSSI on the structural response of buildings compared to non-interaction analysis (NIA) and soil-structure interaction (SSI) analysis. In the present study, two identical 4-bay*4-bay, three-story RCC buildings are modeled adjacent to each other with a soil domain beneath it to investigate the effect of SSSI on the forces experienced by footings under gravity and seismic load cases. The ANSYS software is used for modeling various non-interaction and interaction models which work on the principle of FEM. The results indicate that in most of the footings, the SSSI effect causes a significant redistribution of forces compared to SSI and NIA under both gravity and seismic load cases. The maximum interaction effect is observed on the footings that are closer to the adjacent building. The axial force, shear force and bending moment values on these footings show that SSI causes a significant increase in these values compared to non-interaction analysis but the presence of adjacent building relieves these forces significantly.