A full experimental and numerical modelling of the practicability of thin foam barrier as vibration reduction measure

Abstract

This paper presents the performance of geofoam-filled trenches in mitigating of ground vibration transmissions by the means of a full experimental study. The results are interpreted in the frequency domain. Fully automated 2D and 3D numerical models are applied to evaluate the screening effectiveness of geofoam-filled trenches in the active and passive schemes. Experimental results are in good agreement with the prediction of numerical modelling. The validated model is used to investigate the influence of geometrical and dimensional features on the trench. In addition, three different systems including single, double and triangle wall obstacles are selected for analysis, and the results are compared for various situations. The parametric study is based on complete automation of the model through coupling finite element analysis software (Plaxis) and Python programming language to control input, change the parameters, as well as to produce output and calculate the efficiency of the barrier. The results show that the depth and the width of approximately 1λr and 0.2λr, respectively are enough to reach the acceptable amount of efficiency for the active isolation for all three systems. For the passive scheme, the role of depth can be ignored for the single and double wall barriers, while depth plays a significant role for the triangle wall system.