Resilience model for coastal-building foundations with time-variant soil strength due to water intrusion in a changing climate

Groundwater inundation as a consequence of sea level rise triggers significant risks for building foundations in coastal areas. This paper presents a framework to model the resilience of coastal-building foundations in the presence of soil strength deterioration due to water intrusion. The resilience model is mathematically based on the integration of the time-variant performance function within a reference period of interest. A strip foundation is considered, whose ultimate bearing capacity is modeled by the Terzaghi trinomial formula. The rise of groundwater table reduces the strength of soils, and the impact of climate change on groundwater level rise is incorporated in the resilience assessment. An example is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed framework. It is shown that ignoring the effect of groundwater level rise in a changing climate would result in a non-conservative estimate of structural resilience. The life-time resilience is also dependent on the selection of the maintenance strategies, through which the performance function is restored to an enhanced state. Future studies should also consider the joint impact of other factors (e.g., corrosion) on the deterioration of coastal-building foundations.

Automated summary

This paper presents a framework to model the resilience of coastal-building foundations in the presence of soil strength deterioration due to water intrusion caused by sea level rise. The rise of groundwater table reduces the strength of soils, and the impact of climate change on groundwater level rise is incorporated in the resilience assessment. An example is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed framework. Ignoring the effect of groundwater level rise in a changing climate would result in a non-conservative estimate of structural resilience.