Soil-structure interaction in steel truss sheds roofed by circular arches

Abstract Structural engineers usually consider that the foundation supporting soil behaves as a non-deformable solid that remains unchanged after loading. However, practice in foundation design indicates that the soil will deform when subjected to loading and this causes disturbances in the structure. In this study, the so-called soil-structure interaction was analysed in a steel truss shed roofed by a circular arch. Stress and strain changes in the structure joints and corresponding displacements were investigated. Normal stresses in the footing-soil interface and generated displacements were also studied. The procedure compared the solution with the hypothesis of fixed supports using footings of various sizes by computing the effects of the soil-structure interaction. In order to obtain the results, a numerical modeling based on the finite element method was carried out using the SAP2000(r) software. The results confirmed the initial hypothesis that even small footings supporting large eccentricities from loads and moments exhibited only compressive stresses in the footing-soil interface.