Determination of soil impedance functions from vibration-test response of a circular foundation

The paper presents the results of the determination from vibration tests of impedance functions for a concrete basemat of a one-quarter scale model of a nuclear power-plant containment building. The tests were designed to excite all rigid-body modes of the foundation. In addition to the impedance functions for all the rigid-body degrees of freedom, natural frequencies and damping for the fundamental modes were estimated. Comparison of the test-determined modal characteristics with corresponding analytical ones based on the Lysmer analog shows that though the latter gives natural-frequency estimates of the right order of magnitude, it does not give acceptable estimates of the damping coefficient. Analytical impedance functions based on a model of a rigid-plate on an elastic half-space were found to have the sam trend as the test-determined ones at lower frequencies, but not at higher frequencies. The utility of test data for verification of analysis is discussed.