Experimental modelling of soil-structure interaction compared with numerical analyses.

Typical problems in Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, such as soil-structure interaction, require assumptions to be made on soil behaviour which is very complicated and dependent from many parameters. In consequence to this, it is often necessary to resort to approximate methods and to empirical solutions based on experimental and numerical approaches. In the paper is reported an experimental and numerical analysis concerned with the performance of a shallow foundation model on granular dry soil. In the experimental tests two rigid circular plates have been used. Settlement, contact pressure and induced stress state were measured. The obtained results have been compared with approaches based on "continuum" analyses. Subsequently a numerical approach has been tested, analyzing the experimental results with the ones coming from the analytical implemented model. Soil is simulated as an assembly of discrete non-linear elastic elements; each element is characterized by its own parameters and modifies its behaviour ac cording to the stress level induced from the applied external loads.