Effect of Existing Building Walls on the Geotechnical Behavior of Foundation under Earthquake Loading

— Structure’s systems are subjected to additional loads due to earthquakes that may be produces progressive failures. The building illustrates dissimilar categories of failure mechanism for the minor to major earthquake conditions. These structures categorized to the most susceptible type of building has experienced serious hazard or even full failure for the period of seismic activities, therefore their investigation is a complex thing to do. Consequently, this research aims at studying the behaviour of large-scale model of structures constructed with and without brick walls under seismic conditions. The effect of building walls on the performance of the structure during earthquake loading is investigated numerically using PLAXIS 3D software. An eight story building with basement designed on a mat foundation is simulated as three-dimensional model in case of brick walls existing and without brick walls case. The effect of existence such wall building on the stability of foundation soil system is discussed in the form of lateral, horizontal deformation, and foundation acceleration. The studied showed that the reduction of extreme horizontal displacement and bending moment for building foundation with brick walls reached to 43%, and 68% respectively compared to the building without walls. The consideration of wall as filling for super structure significantly reduce the foundation acceleration by as much as 72% of its initial value, which lead to considerable effect of increasing the foundation stability.