Accounting for soil-structure interaction in the calibration of monitored buildings

This paper presents a first study for the nonlinear identification of a monitored masonry building, i.e. the School Pietro Capuzi in Visso (MC), considering soil-structure interaction phenomena. A Time-Frequency Distribution computed with Short Fourier Transform of the signals is used to estimate the evolution of the model parameters in time. Then, the instantaneous frequencies of a plane soil-structure system are identified. For the dynamic behavior, two types of mechanical laws are mixed to produce a black-box model of the system: a rate-independent Bouc-Wen type oscillator for the building and a modified, rate-dependent, Davidenkov type oscillator for the soil. The School of Visso is deemed to be a good candidate for validating the calibration methodology, for various reasons: geotechnical and geophysical tests for this case study are available; soil is expected to significantly affect the seismic response of the structure; a preliminary Finite Element calibration has led to discrepant results, like those produced by unmodeled dynamics.