ABSTRACT
Once the settlement is determined in one or several locations of a foundation, or when an average settlement is determined, the obvious question is to know whether the displacement is allowable for the supported structure. In complex or problematic cases, it will be necessary to carry out a more sophisticated calculation of the soil-structure interaction than the one that consists in determining the displacement of the structure and then to compare it with the following empirical allowable values. The fundamental issue for the application of the criteria of allowable deformations for buildings and structures recalled is to be able to assess the differential settlement or rotation of structures, which is a more complex issue than assessing total settlement. Taking non-linearities of the ground behaviour into account, and therefore in the soil-structure interaction modelling, requires appropriate iterative procedures. For general rafts, the boundary between the “geotechnical” and the “structural” models is usually located at the base of the raft.
