Serviceability performance of buildings founded on rubber–soil mixtures for geotechnical seismic isolation

Base isolation is a low-damage seismic design strategy that can be used for constructing resilient structures. Geotechnical seismic isolation (GSI) is a new category of emerging base isolation techniques that has attracted global interest in the past decade. Research on GSI based on rubber-soil mixtures (RSM) has focused on structural performance under earthquake actions, whilst there are concerns over the serviceability limit states (SLS) requirements in relation to (i) human comfort under strong winds and (ii) ground settlement under gravity, which may induce cracking and durability issues in structures. This article presents the first study on the serviceability performance of buildings constructed with the GSI-RSM system. The finite element model of a coupled soil-foundation-structure system has been validated by data recorded from geotechnical centrifuge testing. The numerical estimates of ground settlement have also been compared with analytical predictions. It is concluded that the GSI-RSM system can satisfactorily fulfill the SLS requirements.