Soi l -St r uc t ur e I nt er ac t i on Ef f ec t s i n

Subs i denc e Zones

Panos D. Kiousis

1. I nt r oduc t i on

Large areas of land around the world have been underground-mined for
coal and other minerals. Many of these lands are relatively close to
communities which were built, or have expanded, over undermined areas.
As a result, homes, buildings, bridges, and other infrastructure are exposed
to potentially dangerous problems such as the effects of mine subsidence,
explosion related vibrations, fires, mine chemicals, open shafts, etc.
Mine subsidence occurs over areas where coal or mineral ores have been
removed. The problems associated with subsidence are numerous and
range in magnitude. This paper addresses the issue of ground settlement
over large areas, which have a direct effect on most man-made structures,
including utility infrastructure, highways, bridges, and buildings.
Mine subsidence is often an after-effect, where the underground mine may
have been abandoned years ago with no obvious influence to the
infrastructure above. A gradual, time dependent failure progresses
upwards, and combined with newly added surface loads results in
unsuspected failures. As an example, coal mines in the State of Illinois, in
the United States of America, over 900 feet deep have subsided and
continue to cause damages to modern improvements. [1]
The intent of this paper is to present a simple framework to calculate the
effects of combined subsidence and soil-structure interaction on structures
that have been built on areas that are affected by mine subsidence. A
complete methodology to account for these effects is presented and
demonstrated with an example.
2. Def or mat i on Char ac t er i st i c s of Subsi denc e

The features of subsidence related deformation are presented in Figure 1.

The ground surface is subjected to uneven settlements, which are also
combined with compressive horizontal movements directly above the mined
area and tensile horizontal movements in a transition zone as shown in
Figure 1.
Figure 1: Subsidence Characteristics [2]

The effects of such movement on structures are illustrated in Figure 2. It
becomes clear that structures built in subsidence areas are subjected to
differential vertical settlements, but also to differential horizontal
deformations.
Figure 2: Structural Deformations Due to Subsidence

Thus, subsidence creates a rather unique soil-structure interaction problem.
Ground surface deformations occur on the free surface. The superstructure
typically cannot follow exactly the free ground deformations due to the
superstructure stiffness, thus creating a soil structure interaction problem.

The problem is complicated, and solutions often require the use of extensive
finite element modeling [3]. This approach is often inconvenient for practical
applications given the uneven contributions in the complexity of the problem
between the superstructures and the foundation soils. Typically, the
modeling of the superstructure is linear and contributes a few tens or maybe
hundreds of degrees of freedom in the analysis. On the other hand, the
modeling of the soil substructure is typically non-linear, and contributes
thousands of degrees of freedom to a lengthy and iterative analysis.
Nonlinear springs, when properly defined, can simulate the soil behavior
and thus reduce significantly the complexities of soil-structure interaction
problems [4]. This approach is implemented and demonstrated here on a
two span bridge. The importance of soil-structure interaction in subsidence
problems thus becomes clear.
3. The analysis of a two-span bridge

Let us consider a typical two span bridge illustrated in Figure 3. For the
purposes of this analysis, it is assumed that the problem is symmetric, and
thus all foundation movements considered here are differential of support B
with respect to the equally settled supports A and C.
Note that subsidence, demonstrated by the dashed line in Figure 3, is
combined with additional deformations caused by the bridge support loads.
Note that the bridge support loads are not defined by statics alone, and their
final magnitude depends on the soil-structure interaction and the
subsidence.
A solution can be approximated using standard commercial software, by
supporting the beam on three linear springs as shown in Figure 3.
However, such a solution can be quite inaccurate because it is subjected to
two limiting assumptions: a) the springs are linear, and b) the spring
compression is equal to the girder settlement at the point of the support.
Both assumptions can be very inaccurate for subsidence problems, where
the deformations often exceed the linear range of response of the
foundation soil, and where subsidence causes additional differential support
settlements. Thus, the spring compression is not equal to the structural
settlement.

Figure 3: Structural Deformations Due to Subsidence

To account for soil-structure interaction effects, a constitutive relation for the
foundation load-deformation is required. These relations can be complex.
However, simpler, and reasonably accurate expressions can be derived,
based on non-linear springs, in order to simplify the problem [4, 5]. In the
present analysis, a nonlinear spring with an asymptotic load-compression
relation is used as shown in Figure 3:
R =
o
1
K
+
o
R
u

(1)

where, K is the initial slope of the Load-Compression relation of the
foundation subgrade, R
u
is the bearing capacity (Figure 3), and o is the
compression of the foundation subgrade. This relation typically agrees with
reasonable accuracy on load compression tests on plate tests (Figure 4).
With the load-compression relationship of the bridge footings established,
the soil-structure interaction problem of Figure 3 can be solved using the
classical approach of replacing the middle support at B with its reaction R
B
,
and producing the following compatibility of deformations:

B
i
+R
B

BB
+
BS
+ (o
B
- o
A
) = u (2)

where:

B
i
is the differential deflection of point B of the beam AC, without
the support at B,

BB
is the differential deflection of point B of the beam AC (no
middle support) due to a unit vertical load at B,

BS
is the differential subsidence settlement at point B,
o
B
is the compression displacement of the spring at B, and
o
A
is the compression displacement of the spring at A.
Figure 4: Validation of Equation (1) vs Plate Load Tests
on medium dense soil [6]

The following data define the parameters of the example problem of Figure
3:
Table 1: Two-Span Bridge Data
I
1
I
2
q EI K R
Bu

M M kN/m kNm
2
kN/m kN
32 32 55 14491389 45000 4000

Solution of the nonlinear Equation (2) must be achieved, such that R
A
, R
B
,
and R
C
are provided by Equation (1) and satisfy that vertical equilibrium
w(I
1
+I
2
) = R
A
+R
B
+ R
C
. Global moment equilibrium is automatically
satisfied due to the problem symmetry (I
1
= I
2
and R
A
= R
C
).
A number of non-linear equation solvers can be used to obtain the solution
to the above problem, such as the optimization functions fMinCon of Matlab,
NMinimize of Mathematica, or Solver of Microsoft Excel. The latter has
been employed in this study.
The solution of the above structural problem is summarized in Table 2. The
importance of both the subsidence and the soil-structure interaction become
immediately clear with the significant redistribution of internal forces from
the central support to the abutments. The effects of such redistribution are
best described with the changes in the bridge bending moment diagram
presented in Figure 5. The changes in span and support bending moments
are presented in Table 3.
Table 2: Effects of non-linear interaction and subsidence in structural
analysis of Bridge
R
B

BS
+ o
B
R
A
o
A

kN m kN M
No subsidence No interaction 2200 0 660 0
Nonlinear Interaction No
subsidence 2043 0.093 739 0.034
Nonlinear Interaction 0.1 m
subsidence 1828 0.175 846 0.035
Nonlinear Interaction 0.2 m
subsidence 1606 0.260 957 0.036
Nonlinear Interaction 0.3 m
subsidence 1377 0.347 1072 0.036


Figure 4: Effects of non-linear interaction and subsidence in the
bending moment diagram of the left half of the bridge

Table 4: Effects of non-linear interaction and subsidence in the bending

moment extremes of the bridge
Type of Analysis Span Moment Support
Moment
kN m kN m
No interaction - No subsidence 3961 -7037
Nonlinear interaction - No subsidence 4955 -4523
Nonlinear interaction - 0.1 m
subsidence 6503 -1087
Nonlinear interaction - 0.2 m
subsidence 8326 2473
Nonlinear interaction - 0.3 m
subsidence 10434 6134

It is common practice to design simple two-span bridges without accounting
for the effects of soil-structure interaction. Such interaction, although
significant, often results in internal moment redistributions which are within
the capacity of a ductile structure to redistribute its internal forces. In the
case of the bridge of the current example, the span moment increases from
the magnitude of 3961 kN m to 4955 kN m (25% increase) when the soil-
structure interaction effects are accounted for. However, the influence of the
differential subsidence can result in much larger changes that exceed the
bridge capacity even under moderate loads. In the example of Table 4, the
span moment increases by as much as 160% of the original design, which
can be detrimental to the stability of the structural system of this bridge. In
addition to the large increase of span moment, the subsidence-soil-structure
interaction combination results in a complete reversal of the support
moment, which, for a concrete structure can be catastrophic if not
accounted for at the original design.
4. Summary and Conclusions

The internal force redistributions are examined for structures which are
subjected to combined effects of nonlinear soil-structure interaction and
subsidence. A method is introduced to account for these effects, which
achieves equilibrium under nonlinear response while satisfying the
compatibility of deformations between the deformed superstructure and
foundation soil. It is concluded that structures subjected to subsidence can
be subjected to internal forces that vary significantly from the design
specifications and as a result, may be unsafe.
5. References

1. Len Meier and Robert Gibson Approaches to Mine Subsidence in

Four U.S. Communities.
https://fs.ogm.utah.gov/pub/mines/AMR_Related/NAAMLP/PMImpl/
MeierGib.pdf, accessed on 2/12/2012.
2. http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/minres/districts/homepage/
california/Underground/Mine%20Subsidence/mine_subsidence.htm
Accessed on 2/12/2012.
3. Oliver Deck and Harlalka Anirudh, Numerical Study of the Soil-
Structure interaction within mining subsidence areas, Computers
and Geotechnique, Vol. 37, pp 802-816.
4. Dawn E. Conniff and Panos D. Kiousis Elastoplastic Medium for
Foundation Settlements and Monotonic Soil-Structure Interaction
under Combined Loadings, International J ournal for Numerical and
Analytical Methods in Geomechanics, Vol. 31 pp.789-807, 2007.
5. C.T. Chatzigogos, A. Pecker, and J . Salencon, Macroelement
Modeling of Shallow Foundations, Soil Dynamics and Earthquake
Engineering, Vol. 29, pp. 765-781, 2009.
6. Braja M. Das, and Nagaratnam Sivakugan, Settlements of Shallow
Foundations on Granular Soil An overview, International J ournal
of Geotechnical Engineering, Vol. 1, pp. 19-29, 2007.