I am aiming to simulate a deep excavation near an existing tower with 4 levels of below grade parking (shaded in grey). The approximate loading of the building is 10 ksf. Therefore I have simulated the material (shaded in grey) as a non-porous Mohr Coloumb material with stiffness and strength parameters equivalent to concrete. The density is0.187 kips/ft3 in order to achieve the 10 ksf vertical pressure at the base of the building. I have also added a negative interface on the outside of the building with Rinter of 0.6. The soil layers are simulated with the Hardening Soil model. I was wondering if this approach makes sense and if not, what is the best way to simulate a nearby burried structure.
Hello Boris,
I believe that Berk Demir explained it very well, including some important modelling aspects to be aware of (e.g., anchors crossing).
So, it comes down to how exactly you want to simulate the building, as different approaches can be used.
Typically it comes down to engineering decisions and if you feel unsure, try to run both cases and see if there are big differences so that you can decide which approach gives better results.
In principle, modelling the building as a polygon gives a good representation, even though many times we select the Linear Elastic material model to simulate concrete as we expect failure to occur on the soil side and not so much on the concrete.
Thank you Stefanos. I just checked the simulation with the linear elastic properties as you suggested. The displacements/FoS look fairly similar. I will run a second simulation to try out the method Berk suggested. Appreciate the prompt response.