Towards a practice-oriented procedure to account for static and dynamic interaction among three adjacent shallow foundations

Many historic centers in Italy and around the world consist of ancient masonry buildings closely packed together or constructed in clusters for defensive purposes. Alternatively, the recent population growth in modern megalopolises, coupled with the increasing use of reclaimed soils to address land scarcity, has resulted in the development of highly densely urbanized areas placed on soft or very soft soils. In both scenarios, neighboring structures, despite being structurally separate, may interact with one another through the underlying soil. To gain new insights into this phenomenon, the paper presents a comprehensive numerical study. It analyzes the static and dynamic responses of three closely-spaced shallow foundations in both the time and frequency domains using a rigorous 3D continuum approach. The conducted parametric study considers the effects of foundation spacing, oscillation frequency, and