The analysis of soil-structure interaction effect had its fundamental beginning at the middle part of the 19th century, when Sir William Thompson –better known as Lord Kelvin– analyzed the problem of determining displacements elicited by concentrated static forces acting at some arbitrary point in an elastic infinite solid. Since then the problem was studied only statically until the beginning of the 20th century, when the case was defined based on a dynamic approach by Sir Horace Lamb. The influence of soil-structure interaction effects on structural response was initially assessed by Sezawa and Kanai in the 1930’s.

The following sections are intended to provide a general view about the history of research related to the solution to the Soil-Structure Interaction problem. The historical review is mainly based on the detailed work done by Kausel (2009), splitting the whole group of research papers in two eras, the first from the very beginning to 1977 and the contemporary era following after that year. The different approaches defined to analyze and solve the soil-structure interaction problem are presented in the table format, and summarized consequently in graphical timelines.

CONTEMPORARY ERA

The complete works done by Veletsos and Wei (1971) as well as Luco and Westmann (1971, 1972) provided rigorous solutions to the problem of circular plates underlain by elastic half-spaces excited dynamically over a broad range of frequencies, and for a wide set of Poisson’s ratios. These achievements are the base of the subsequent developments in Soil-Structure Interaction analysis.The availability of more powerful computation tools since the late 1970’s provided continuously improving capability of handling the new versatile numerical methods –i.e. finite elements and boundary elements methods– and using them to make possible the complicated analysis used to solve the Soil-Structure Interaction problem. Therefore, for example, the highly idealized mathematical problem of circular disks welded onto perfectly homogeneous half-spaces was now stated as irregularly shaped, flexible foundations embedded in inhomogeneous or layered media, and even account for rather complex effects such as the inelasticity of the soil.

There is a huge amount of important contributions that have been developed to solve the Soil-Structure Interaction problem based on these previous fundamental works. The following list is a quick review of some of the main research subjects and involved researchers, including some works that started before 1977 and have been continuously developed in this Contemporary Era:

Complex material behavior [Seed and Idriss(1969)]

Free-field problem, especially the amplification of vertically propagating waves by means of practical algorithms which account for inelastic effects [Schnabel et al. (1972)]

Consideration of non-horizontally layered soils, undulating or dipping layers, subjected to miscellaneous kinds of seismic waves.

Three-steps solution –i.e. Kinematic Interaction, Foundation Stiffness and Inertial Interaction– for the SSI problem [Kausel and Roesset (1974)]

Diffraction of waves by topographic features, such as basins, canyons and depressions, wedges, cliffs or hills, and their effect on structures [Wong et al.(1976), Sánchez-Sesma et al. (2000)]

Scattering of waves by foundations embedded in various soil configurations [Trifunac (1971,1973), Lee(1988)]

Footings on miscellaneous shapes and with various degrees of embedment, subjected to either forces or arbitrary seismic environments [Wong and Luco (1978)]

Footings on layered soils [Luco (1974), Kausel (1974), Gazetas and Roesset (1976)]

Effect of foundation flexibility [Savidis and Richter (1979)]

Multiple footings and structure-soil-structure interaction [Wong and Luco (1986) and Lin et al (1973)]

Structural response and effects [Roesset et al (1973) and Bielak (1976)]

Transverse isotropy, anisotropy [Kirkner (1982)]

Single piles, pile groups, caissons and all of these in various kinds of soils [Kaynia and Kausel (1982)]

Numerical methods [Lysmer and Richart (1966), Karabalis and Beskos (1984), Apsel and Luco (1987), Alarcon and Cano (1989)]

Lateral Load-Deformation models for pile foundations in sands [Parker et al. (1970), Bogard and Matlock (1980), API (1982), Murchinson (1983)]

Soils whose properties change continuously with depth [Vrettos (1991,1999)]

Dynamic non-linear analysis of pile foundations, including behaviour during earthquake excitation [Wu and Finn (1997), Finn (2005)]

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