Probabilistic seismic design of pile-supported building structure incorporating inherent variability of subsoil and ground motion uncertainty

Seismic failure of structures supported on pile foundation has revealed the importance of seismic soil-foundation-structure interaction(SSFSI)for ensuring safe design.The uncertainties in subsoil properties and seismic loading may lead the problem to be more redundant.In this context,the present study attempts to assess the seismic reliability of pile foundation-supported building structure embedded in inhomogeneous clay layer considering inertial interaction.Shear strength of clay and earthquake loading is considered as spatially variable uncertain parameters.A non-linear soil-pile-structure system was assumed,and Monte Carlo simulation(MCS)was adopted to obtain probabilistic response of the system.First-order reliability method(FORM)is used for reliability assessment.The study indicates significant influence of uncertain parameters on the seismic response of building structure.Further,the influence of material and load uncertainty parameters on the probabilistic seismic response of structure designed following older version of code is higher than counterpart structure designed following recent version.FORM based reliability analysis infers thatserviceability criterion may be the governing parameter for pile foundation design.Moreover,the study also indicates that the curvature ductility demand of pile may be considered another crucial design parameter to assess the reliability of pile foundation.