Experimental study on damping characteristics of soil-structure interaction system based on shaking table test

Soil-structure interaction (SSI) system is composed of soil and structure that are two materials with quite different damping behaviors and it is regarded as non-classical damping system in conventional concept. Based on the analysis of motion state of SSI system, the paper presents the damping characteristic of SSI system via shaking table test. The results of transfer function, acceleration response time histories and equivalent viscous damping ratio and so on indicate that under certain conditions, SSI system shows approximate classical damping characteristic. In practical projects, dynamical analysis of SSI system can be viewed as approximately classical damping system once the synergistic effect of soil is considered.