Application of Biot’s Poroelasticity to Seismic Analysis of Subway Stations in a Saturated Poroelastic Half-space: Effects of Viscous Coupling

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper presents a parametric investigation on the effects of viscous coupling on the seismic responses of subway stations in a saturated poroelastic half-space which is modeled as a two-phase medium by the Biot’s theory. Moreover, an equivalent single-phase model for the saturated poroelastic half-space is introduced, and comparisons between the single-phase solutions and the two-phase solutions are made. The results are obtained by a finite element-indirect boundary element coupling method. The study shows that the viscous coupling has significant influences on the seismic internal forces and deformation of the subway stations, and the single-phase approximation can cause large errors.