Seismic settlement of shallow foundations constructed in seismic active areas should be considered for a reasonable estimation of the total settlement. However, the trend of the seismic settlement of shallow foundation constructed on a sandy soil is not clearly understood and it is estimated by designer using simple analytical methods. These methods do not consider the effect of the soil–structure interaction. This research, therefore, reports the results of 105 robust finite element models developed to investigate the seismic settlement of a shallow foundation constructed on a dry sand. The influence of the load applied on the foundation, relative density of sand, foundation embedment, peak ground acceleration of the earthquake shake, thickness of the sandy soil, and the dominant frequency of the earthquake shake have been examined to provide a comprehensive understanding of the parameters influencing the seismic settlement. The results of the analyses showed that increasing the load applied on the foundation or the peak ground acceleration remarkably increases the seismic settlement, while increasing the embedment depth remarkably reduces the seismic settlement. In addition, the relationship between the thickness of the sandy layer and the seismic settlement is found to be very complex and noticeably influenced by the relative density of the sand. More importantly, it was found that the seismic settlement dramatically increases when the dominant frequency of the earthquake approaches the natural frequency of the system. Thus, all these parameters are important and should be considered by designers for a reasonable estimation of the seismic settlement. The conclusions drawn from this paper will aid the development of a good analytical method in future, and the results reported in this paper also provide useful and novel database to designers and practitioners.

为了合理估算总沉降量，应考虑在地震活动区建造的浅层地基的地震沉降量。但是，尚不清楚沙质土壤上浅层基础地震沉降的趋势，设计者使用简单的分析方法对其进行了估算。这些方法没有考虑土壤与结构相互作用的影响。因此，本研究报告了105个鲁棒的有限元模型的结果，这些模型是为研究在干沙上建造的浅层基础的地震沉降而开发的。施加的载荷对地基，沙子的相对密度，地基埋设，地震震动的峰值地面加速度，沙土厚度，并检查了地震震动的主导频率，以全面了解影响地震沉降的参数。分析结果表明，增加施加在地基上的载荷或峰值地面加速度会显着增加地震沉降，而增加埋深则显着减少地震沉降。另外，沙层厚度与地震沉降之间的关系被发现是非常复杂的，并且受到沙的相对密度的显着影响。更重要的是，发现当地震的主导频率接近系统的固有频率时，地震沉降会急剧增加。从而，所有这些参数都很重要，设计人员应考虑这些参数以合理估计地震沉降。本文得出的结论将有助于将来开发一种良好的分析方法，并且本文所报告的结果也为设计师和从业人员提供了有用且新颖的数据库。