Abstract: Affected by various factors, the stiffness difference of the building adjacent to the excavation is significant. In order to understand the effect of the stiffness difference of building, the response of the building with different stiffnesses adjacent to excavation is analyzed subtly considering the small strain stiffness behavior of soil. The analytical results show that when the building with different stiffnesses locates over the lowest point and the hogging zone of the settlement trough, the tensile strain of the wall is the most obvious. In this case, the locations for any stiffness buildings are in most adversities. With the increase of the stiffness of the building, the deflection and the tensile strain of the wall decrease as the logarithmic curve. For the building with low stiffness, the tensile strain of wall chiefly depends on the extent of the settlement trough and is less affected by its stiffness. When the stiffness of the building is large, the performance of the building affected by the excavation primarily appears as rigid body motion, but the internal deformation of the building is relatively small.

Key words: excavation, building, 3D-FE analysis, stiffness, tensile strain of wall