The case studied in the paper proves that thickening the pile cap is an effective seismic retrofit alternative to strengthen a pile group foundation. Unlike the typical seismic retrofitting of foundation, the proposed method eliminates the need to drive long piles into existing bridge substructures, substantially reducing cost, construction time and traffic interruption. The method thickens the...

A multiscale approach [1] that couples the finite-element method (FEM) and discrete-element (DEM) is employed to model analyse earthquake fault rupture-soil-foundation interaction (FR-SFI) problem. In approach, soil constitutive responses are obtained from DEM solutions of representative volume elements (RVEs) embedded at FEM integration points so as effectively bypass phenomenological hypothes...

The paper defines an updated method for “soil – reinforced concrete foundation” calculation that takes into account their mutual interaction. In this method, both the foundation structure and footing are represented by a rigid-plastic model, which makes it possible to determine bearing capacity of system. This eliminates possibility destruction from punching exhaustion its capacity. It further ...