Dimensional Analysis: Overview and applications to problems of Soil-Structure Interaction

Dimensional Analysis is a long-established tool widely used in many branches of engineering and science. However, applications in geotechnical engineering, and in particular soil-structure interaction (SSI), have barely been explored, in spite of the method's potential to clarify parameter influence and shed light on the range of response regimes. The purpose of this text is twofold: (a) it intends to provide a brief introduction to Dimensional Analysis specifically tailored to geotechnical engineers by carefully choosing illustrative examples, (b) it uses Dimensional Analysis to study the parameter space in soil-building interaction problems, emphasizing modeling choices and using a finite-element model to demonstrate the concept of physical similarity. The suitability of using certain dimensionless parameters over others is discussed based on and their magnitude and sensitivity analysis.