Numerical investigation of seismic response of soil structure Interaction of the Sabkha soils in Saudi Arabia

The southern and northern regions of Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Gulf suffer from inadequate soil quality, leading to damage during earthquakes. Understanding Sabkha soil's impact is crucial for earthquake-resistant building designs. This paper provides a three-dimensional finite element (FE) analysis of seismic soil-structure interaction utilizing the ABAQUS software. The research was conducted using three actual ground motion records that represent seismic activities with different intensities (low, middle, and high frequency). Additionally, the effect of the building's height and thickness of layers of Sabkha soil were investigated. The earthquake's response has been studied regarding acceleration response, stress distribution, and Sabkha soil settlement at the soil-foundation interface. The FE simulation results demonstrate that Sabkha soils increase seismic waves at the soil-structure interface due to the effects of soil-structure interaction. Moreover, the results indicate no significant likelihood of liquefaction in the Sabkha soil layers at the maximum design peak horizontal ground acceleration of 0.035 g; nevertheless, liquefaction is expected for elevated PHA values.