Investigating seismic response in adjacent structures: A study on the impact of buildings’ orientation and distance considering soil–structure interaction

Through the past few months, our world witnessed and is still suffering from several severe earthquakes in different places around the globe like Turkey, Syria, and Morocco. Therefore, the seismic activity domain grew the center of attention for researchers, engineers, and even regular people. The most significant topics in this field that must be taken into consideration are soil–structure interaction (SSI) and structure–soil–structure interaction (SSSI). The term SSI refers to the connection among structure, foundation, and soil while the term SSSI refers to the link among adjacent structures with the soil. Formerly, these subjects were not taken into account through the numerical and analytical methods utilized for the dynamic analysis of the seismic response of the structures (i.e., the effect of soil was ignored), and this matter led to disastrous costs that included loss of lives and properties. This article intends to offer an inclusive helpful knowledge of some significant factors that were not taken into consideration in the previous studies and can be utilized in the field of seismic analysis and design for minimizing the possible risks of earthquakes particularly the heavy ones by defining the SSSI behavior of adjacent structures due to these factors. To accomplish this goal, a sequence of seismic examinations via a shaking table system will be performed taking into consideration the impact of soil media. These tests will inspect the effect of the structure’s orientation and distance between them on the dynamic response of two close steel structures predicating on sand soil. The orientations selected here are of two types: the first one is parallel to direction of the earthquake wave and the second one is perpendicular to direction of the earthquake wave. Each orientation will contain three tests of three distances: close distance, medium distance, and far distance. Two novel small-scale multi-degrees of freedom steel models of three storeys are utilized in this study. Test results illustrated that the diversity of buildings orientation with distances has a significant effect on the SSSI behavior of the neighboring buildings. It is seen that the orientation perpendicular to the direction of the earthquake wave offered maximum impact on the dynamic responses at the far distance while the parallel orientation gave ultimate effect at the medium distance.