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.
That doesn't look bad for me. I usually model the basement walls with plate element (and add horizontal beams on possible slab locations) and add the total building load as a distrubuted load at the bottom. Of course plate elements have zero unit weight. With this, I can take the small deformation of the building into account too while in your case it is very rigid. But, of course, all of these are rough approximations to buildings that we have not designed. Rinter is all other subject and nobody can give you the correct answer. Just one note, I would make sure that building does not have any piles etc. to support that excavation since it is not very shallow. If they have piles, you might have a little trouble with the anchors. Lastly, click on embedded beams of anchors' bond length and select the behaviour as grout body, as far as I can see it is not correct right now - you can make sure that by checking if there is any small green rectangles at the beginning or end of the embedded beam.
P.S.: The contractors usually do not like the first anchor that you have there crossing through other anchors. I can imagine that in 3D, they do not intersect, but considering tolerances and other possible construction problems, if they catch the strands during drilling, you might have problems since anchor will lose its force.
Thank you Berk! I will give it a try with the plate elements and compare the two results. Regarding the grouted body, the color is misleading because I chose a green color for my embedded beam rows. I changed it to light blue now and there are no green rectangles. I simulated the grouted body as massive circular beam with a diameter of 6".
Answer Verified By: Boris Kolev