Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 WHY THIS BOOK

It is said that authorship of any kind is a tremendous boost to one’s ego. Readers, who
would care to go through these pages, can be rest assured that this book has not been
written to gratify one’s ego trip.
Reason for its birth has been our deep-rooted concern on the way profession of
engineering and especially civil engineering is going – in terms of teaching and practice.
Civil Engineering is perhaps the oldest profession amongst the realms of technology,
which has been practiced by human being from the early dawn of civilization. It is also
indeed a fact that umpteen numbers of books have been written addressing various
topics on Civil and Structural engineering from the time of Galileo (1594) till date. So
what made us write this book when many of the things mentioned herein may or may
not be available in other literature?
The reason for its birth can be attributed as follows:
Civil engineering community in India, in spite of making a lot of progress, very few
authors have addressed the topics that we have tried to cover under one platform.
Topics related to structural and soil dynamics that are taught in the universities
or referred to in design offices are still dependent on very limited number of books1 ,
or code of practices (often outdated) or research papers not readily available to an
average student/engineer.
Finally, in last two decades we have seen a very peculiar trend and that which has
affected the profession globally, and could have a long lasting influence on it.
If we look around the world in terms of books published in civil engineering in
the last two decades (1980–2000) it will be observed that unlike the period 1960–70
almost all books have been authored by academicians where practicing engineers rarely
contributed!
Whatever could be the reason for this apathy from engineers in the industry the
point remains that students coming out of engineering institutes, unlike 30 years ago
are being exposed minimally to practice as prevalent in industry.
And this we believe is creating a serious gap in engineering education. Till such
times practicing engineers are encouraged like in developed countries to participate in

1 Many of them are again out of print. . .

 2 Dynamics of Structure and Foundation: 1. Fundamentals

teaching we are fearful that engineering especially civil engineering will metamorphose
into more an advance course in mathematical physics rather than a scientific art where
theory is honed by intuitive practices and field realties.
Engineering is not only a maze of differential equations, tensors, matrix algebra, or
developing software program. It is much beyond these, where all these mathematical
techniques are mere tools in the hands of a capable engineer who can intuitively visu-
alize the behavior of the structure and foundation he is going to design and check his
intuitive deduction based on the above tools in hands and this makes it essential to
synthesize theory and practice that becomes the hallmark of a complete engineer.
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1.2 WHY THE TOPIC OF DYNAMICS?

Again why did we choose a topic as abstract as dynamics? When writing a book
on Soil mechanics/Foundation engineering or say Reinforced Concrete design would
surely have been a more profitable and less laborious a venture.
The motivation behind the same was that dynamics as a subject we have found car-
ries a peculiar stigma, where it is either loved or pathologically abhorred by engineers
in the industry and even in academics by many.
While its mathematical beauty fascinates and charm many an intellectual mind, the
same thing others find it too intimidating and abstract which creates a mind block that
the topic is far too theoretical, not worth professional attention and can well be taken
care off by proper detailing be it a steel or a concrete structure2 .
The value of proper detailing can never be undermined. However, mathematical
models far too simplified to avoid a little bit of mathematics can well result in moments
and shear that could be out by 200% from reality. We can assure you that no amount
of excellent detailing would save the structure if the moment and shear that are derived
are unrealistic in the first place.
Having counseled many such anti-dynamists in last 25 years in industry and aca-
demics we have found the root cause for this aversion culminates from how the topic
has been presented to him during his initiation to the subject. Our observation has
been that:

• The apathy/mind block has developed due to the way it has been presented to
many of them-which they found difficult to comprehend with instructor showing
little or no sympathy to make it interesting or understandable.
• Compulsion to complete the coursework within inadequate time frame leaving
the instructor with very little time to cite examples from real world to make things
look easy and comprehensible – this has further complicated the issue.
• Tendency of some to make things look mathematically elegant thus unnecessarily
resorting to complex mathematical presentation without preparing the students
to comprehend the physical significance of the same in the first place.

2 Or at worst, use commercially available software as a black box and follow the results blindly.
 Introduction 3

• Finally lack of experience of some instructors in real world practices thus pre-
senting the topic in an extremely theoretical fashion3 does not make things easy
at all.

The study of dynamics has thus become almost like the philosophy of Tantra –
powerful yet fear evoking. Understood by few, while abhorred and misunderstood
by most. And this what we have tried to eradicate here.
To unravel many unpopular myths the topic unjustifiably bears, trying to present
the reader with its divine yet mysterious charm.
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In our presentation of the subject we have not demarcated it into either structural
dynamics or soil dynamics but has rather attributed it as a unified approach.
For we strongly feel that it is high time this barrier is broken between structural
and geo-technical engineering. Without sounding prophetic, it is our strong convic-
tion that structural and soil dynamics will ultimately merge into one unified topic of
“Dynamic Soil Structure Interaction (DSSI)” and which as a subject will surely regain
its importance and strength in years to come.
Research and development on DSSI got a strong impetus in the late 70 and 80s (in
India)4 but somehow lost the momentum in between.
The reason for its faltering to our perception could be attributed to the following:

1 Decline in development of Nuclear power plants in India from the late 80’s due
to the CTBT issues.
2 Reluctance of the geotechnical and structural engineers to sit together and look
into the thing in totality and show the courage to digress beyond the boundary
they have always been taught not to cross.

At the start of the 21st century if we look at the energy scenario of our country things
surely do not look very promising. We have almost exhausted our reserve of first class
coal which is an essential ingredient of a thermal power plant. Whatever balance coal
we have the ash content is far too high and using the same to generate power would
surely make it a serious environmental issue. With environmental scientists drawing
a bleak picture of future due to global warming and green house effect, building
thermal power plants with second grade coal compounded by expensive and tedious
ash handling, and tough environmental legislation that one has to now abide by would
indubitably make conventional fossil fuel power plants a less and less potential choice
as an energy source in future.

3 It is sad to see some of these academicians adept with Laplace and Fourier transforms, Gaussian distri-
bution of power spectrum but ask them to provide technical advice for a real life structure where money
and human life is at stake, they would drop the same like a hot potato at first instance.
They live in their own Cinderella world where dynamics is a branch of theoretical physics they use
conveniently to advance their academic career by publishing one paper after another (mostly having
insignificant or no relevance to any real world engineering practice). It is unfortunate that many of these
paper tigers having little practical experience and are the very people who dominate the engineering
education scenario in our country today.
4 Like Finite Element Method burst into the scene in early 70s.
 4 Dynamics of Structure and Foundation: 1. Fundamentals

With ever spiraling cost of these two commodities in global market (presently touch-
ing $120 per barrel) running power plants with LPG or gas (combined cycle power
plant) one would have to import the same and would surely not be a cost effective pub-
lic utility venture – for the electric tariff to cover the cost would be far too expensive
for a common man to bear.
Considering our geographical location utilization of alternate source of energy like
hydel, solar or wind is only limited. Thus for mass generation of electricity which is
essential for industrialization and economic development, nuclear power plant would
thus surely play an important role in near future, where dynamic analysis/DSSI would
again possibly be a crucial issue to ensure its safety adhering to the international norms
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for such power plants5 .

Leaving aside Nuclear power plants, there are number of other industrial plants
like Petrochemical, Chemical, Mineral beneficiation plants that handles a number of
hazardous items like methyl iso-cyanide, hydrogen sulfide, liquefied natural gas (highly
inflammable) to name only a few. Leakage of these items even due to a moderate
earthquake can create sufficient damage to environment that could take centuries to
recover. Buildings (high rise or other wise) are getting destroyed inevitably in almost
all strong motion earthquakes that take place around the world- killing millions of
people and destroying properties worth billions of dollars. Thus irrespective of our
reluctance to adapt the technology “dynamic analysis of structures and foundations”
have become an important weapon in our arsenal to fight the awesome fury of the
mother nature whose ways are still known little to us.

1.3 THE DEMOGRAPHY OF THE BOOK

The book has been divided into two volumes of which the present book is the Volume-
1. This volume introduces the theoretical aspects of dynamic analysis. Volume-2 uses
these background theories and applies them to different structures and foundations
that are considered important and major infrastructures in civil engineering.
Volume-1 consists of five chapters of which three chapters (Chapters II, III and
IV) are preparatory. It creates the background for your initiation to dynamics and
soil-structure interaction as a subject of study.
Chapter II deals with Theory of Elasticity and Numerical Methods. Theory of
elasticity as we know is mother of all stress analysis and is used by all stress engi-
neers in their profession. It forms the backbone of all static and dynamic analysis in
civil engineering. People wanting to develop a background on dynamics we presume
already have some background on this. However just for quick recapitulation and
reference the major results and concepts have been furnished in a heuristic form for
ready reference.
Numerical methods, in last twenty years with the advent of digital computers have
become one of the most powerful tool in the analytical arsenal of an engineer. We
have observed, that many engineers beyond a level often find it difficult to cope with

5 Nobody would surely want a Charnobyl in hand. Considering the population density of India it is indeed
a fearful prospect.
 Introduction 5

many a practical problem related to dynamics, simply because his background in

numerical analysis is inadequate or insufficient. As such, we have dealt this in sufficient
detail especially finite difference and finite element method (FEM) so that an engineer
feels confident in handling a problem either static or dynamic in his research and
professional work.
While penning this section we had to make some very careful choice as to what to
put herein that gives the reader a broad overall picture, while at the same time ensure
that he does not get lost into too much of mathematical intricacy of many higher order
elements whose presentations are surely mathematically very elegant but has limited
use. Since this book is not essentially a book on Finite Element method we have taken
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the liberty of presenting only those key elements that are most popular and has a high
usage in practice. We sincerely hope that on going through this section many engineers
would give up the habit of using a finite element software simply as a “black box” –
a trend which is not only deplorable but could have a devastating consequence if left
unabated.
Another point which few of the readers might find intriguing is that we have not
presented any software in terms of finite element which is the generic trend in most of
the memoirs available in the market.
Our motive is to make you understand the basics underlying the method, thus
enabling you to use a number of commercially available FEM software available in
the market efficiently as well as with confidence. We would much appreciate to have
some feedback from you to evaluate if we could fulfill this aspiration of ours.
Chapter III deals with vibration of discrete systems and you might just wonder,
why have we started with this topic here? Historically, civil engineers started tinker-
ing around with bodies subjected to motion quite late (1950s) while mechanical and
aerospace engineers started working on this area much ahead of them (1920). It started
possibly from the time when Den Hartog (1924) began giving series of lectures to the
Westinghouse Engineers who were designing Turbines and engines. Civil engineers
when started developing the theory of structural dynamics in late 1950s they thus
depended heavily on these theories of mechanical vibration to develop realistic model
of structures based on lumped mass, springs and dashpots. It will be seen subsequently
when we take up the theories of structural dynamics (in Chapter V) that the theories
are same in many cases and so are many of the results. Thus we felt having some
background on mechanical vibration will only enhance your knowledge data base
and make subsequent understanding better when we take up the theory of structural
dynamics in later chapter.
Chapter IV deals with some fundamental concepts of Static soil-structure interac-
tion. Like in structural analysis as a prelude to dynamic analysis one must have a clear
concept on behavior of structures under static load similarly for DSSI one must have a
clear concept of how does the structure and soil behave in tandem under static loading.
One of the major tool that is used for such coupled analysis (both static and dynamic
problems) is obviously Numerical methods especially FEM and this is where lies the
roots of many mistakes due to improper modeling. This we have discussed here in
quite a detail trying to elaborate on some of the common mistakes people often make
during the mathematical idealization. We sincerely hope that this will help you to
come up with a reasonably correct mathematical model in many cases and enhance
your skill as a FEM modeler.
 6 Dynamics of Structure and Foundation: 1. Fundamentals

This is relatively a short chapter yet it deals with a number of key problems con-
ceptually that many engineers face in their work and often find them difficult if not
confusing to handle.
Chapter V constitutes of basic theories pertaining to structural and soil dynamics.
We start this chapter with the theories of structural dynamics starting from a body
having single degree of freedom to multi-degrees freedom – all possible mathematical
models have been dealt herein with a number of solved problems to give you a better
insight into the system. You will see in many cases as to how the models considered
becomes similar to many we have considered in Chapter III under the heading of
theory of mechanical vibration. One of the major stumbling blocks in the analysis of
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multi-degree freedom system has been to assume modal damping ratio to be constant
for all modes6 . An innovative solution has been suggested herein where the damping
can be forced to vary with modes giving a more realistic output – we hope you will
enjoy the technique.
Time history analysis (THA) is another area where many engineers squirm out of
discomfort and would try their level best to restrict their analysis within the domain of
modal analysis. Leaving aside the intense calculation THA calls for, the main reason for
this apathy is again due to the far too concise treatment meted out to such an important
topic in most of the books in dynamics. On this we have again cut no corners and
have solved sufficient numbers of problems (including the damping effect) that you
can even manage with only a calculator to make you comfortable with the issue.
All the concepts in this section is explained based on harmonic loading which
makes the understanding and insight to the problem in hand easy to understand and
yet may offend an earthquake specialist who might feel we have by passed such an
important issue. However, such impression would be unjustified as dynamic analysis
of structures subjected to earthquake has been dealt in sufficient detail in Volume-2
of this book where a complete chapter is dedicated to this very important topic.
The second part of the chapter deals with soil and elasto-dynamics. We agree and
confess that it was the toughest section that we wrote and took considerable time
and planning from our end as to what and how to present. To our experience soil
and elasto-dynamics as a topic is though now a part of curriculum at post graduate
level in many institutes- but is still given a very cursory treatment where the thrust is
more on laboratory investigation rather than treating the mathematical issues7 . Thus,
no wonder that the soil dynamics is a topic which has remained a source of acute
discomfort to many people in research and industry alike. We have tried to give it
a most comprehensive treatment in starting with Lamb’s (1904) solution to Pekeris
(1955), Pekeris and Lifson (1957) and then slowly digressing into the formulations
of Lysmer (1965), Holzohner (1969), Novak and Berdugo (1972) etc. The objective
has been to give a step by step commentary as to how it developed from Lamb to
where it is presently when dynamic finite element analysis with paraxial and viscous

6 Structural Engineers are forced to use this as there are no mathematical model available till date which
caters to the progressive increment of damping ratio with each mode.
7 The book titled “Wave Motion in Elastic solid” – Karl Graff Dover publication or “Wave Propaga-
tion through Elastic media” – J.D. Achenbach; North Holland Publication, is still not a part of regular
curriculum for students taking coursework in soil dynamics in many Engineering colleges!
 Introduction 7

boundaries are used to model infinite domain problem. In this process we have also
shown how at one stage soil dynamics digressed into a new area of technology often
termed as geotechnical earthquake engineering now a days.
At the very outset, we would like to pacify those readers who might get impatient
with the pages of fearful looking integral equation that invariably generates due to
wave propagation through an elastic medium under mixed boundary conditions that
prevail in foundation dynamics – a topic often not addressed properly in many graduate
courses.
But we can surely assure you that wrestling with a few fundamental theorems in
advanced calculus and a referring to a decent mathematical handbook would suffice
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as they are surely not unconquerable. Even if the theoretical implications belies one’s
comprehension due to his lack of practice with such mathematics – the end results
are sufficiently complete and clear for usage and programming – and these have very
important applications.
One of the major reason based on which we went on to work out many of these
formulations in such detail is because we have observed that many engineers who
use these solutions in their day to day work in the design of machine foundation and
earthquake analysis do it mechanically without a basis as to how some of them have
evolved. It is heartbreaking to hear people believe Lysmer’s or Wolf’s spring which
they have possibly used hundred times (if not more) “are derived based on experiment”
and even “empirical”!
We would rather feel our effort has not gone in vain if we can eradicate such
misconceptions through this book.