Study of the Influence of Underlying Soft-Soil Layers on the Dynamic and Earthquake Response of Bell Towers

Abstract

The dynamic and earthquake response of a bell towers founded on soft soil layers is examined here. The dynamic and earthquake response of such a bell towers is numerically simulated together with a number of layers of the underlying soil. The earthquake response is examined for a variety of load combination conditions employing design spectra as well as the ground motion recorded at a small distance from this bell tower during a prototype earthquake motion. Towards this end, the variation of the recorded ground motion due to the flexibility of these underlying soil layers is also examined. The earthquake response is examined comparatively in terms of global response parameters, such as base shear, overturning moment, and top displacements as well as peak stress values at particular parts of the bell tower that stress concentration occurs. These response values are studied in a comparative way in order to validate these numerical simulations with the observed performance.