Wave dispersion in high‐rise buildings due to soil–structure interaction

Nonparametric techniques for estimation of wave dispersion in buildings by seismic interferometry are applied to a simple model of a soil–structure interaction (SSI) system with coupled horizontal and rocking response. The system consists of a viscously damped shear beam, representing a building, on a rigid foundation embedded in a half‐space. The analysis shows that (i) wave propagation through the system is dispersive. The dispersion is characterized by lower phase velocity (softening) in the band containing the fundamental system mode of vibration, and little change in the higher frequency bands, relative to the building shear wave velocity. This mirrors its well‐known effect on the frequencies of vibration, i.e. reduction for the fundamental mode and no significant change for the higher modes of vibration, in agreement with the duality of the wave and vibrational nature of structural response. Nevertheless, the phase velocity identified from broader band impulse response functions is very close to the superstructure shear wave velocity, as found by an earlier study of the same model. The analysis reveals that (ii) the reason for this apparent paradox is that the latter estimates are biased towards the higher values, representative of the higher frequencies in the band, where the response is less affected by SSI. It is also discussed that (iii) bending flexibility and soil flexibility produce similar effects on the phase velocities and frequencies of vibration of a building. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.