Capacity, Settlement, and Energy Dissipation of Shallow Footings Subjected to Rocking

Abstract

The effectiveness of structural fuse mechanisms used to improve the performance of buildings during seismic loading depends on their capacity, ductility, energy dissipation, isolation, and self-centering characteristics. Although rocking shallow footings could also be designed to possess many of these desirable characteristics, current civil engineering practice often avoids nonlinear behavior of soil in design, due to the lack of confidence and knowledge about cyclic rocking. Several centrifuge experiments were conducted to study the rocking behavior of shallow footings, supported by sand and clay soil stratums, during slow lateral cyclic loading and dynamic shaking. The ratio of the footing area to the footing contact area required to support the applied vertical loads