Novel periodic pile barriers in saturated soil and applications to propagation attenuation of shear plane waves

Abstract

The frequency attenuation zones (AZs) of periodic pile barriers have attracted extensive attention in recent years due to their superior performance in ambient vibration reduction. However, the research on vibration isolation of pile barriers in saturated soil is very limited. Also, the configuration of the traditional pile barrier is simple and the AZ width is narrow, which limits its application in engineering practice. In this paper, to develop novel periodic pile barriers with the maximum relative attenuation zone width (RWAZ) in saturated soil, the topology optimization on the periodic pile unit is carried out with the genetic algorithm (GA) and FEM. For different site conditions, the effects of the saturated soil porosity, the drained elastic modulus, the drained density and the tortuosity coefficient of soil on the optimization results are analyzed, and the corresponding optimized pile structures are proposed, respectively. Thus, the effect of material distribution on the RWAZ is disclosed, and novel periodic pile structures for ambient vibration isolation in saturated soil are developed. Furthermore, the superior shear plane wave attenuation performances of the optimized pile structure in saturated soil are both demonstrated by the established 2D and 3D numerical models.