Propagation of non-uniformly modulated evolutionary random waves in a stratified viscoelastic solid

Abstract

The propagation of non-uniformly modulated, evolutionary random waves in viscoelastic, transversely isotropic, stratified materials is investigated. The theory is developed in the context of a multi-layered soil medium overlying bedrock, where the material properties of the bedrock are considered to be much stiffer than those of the soil and the power spectral density of the random excitation is assumed to be known at the bedrock. The governing differential equations are first derived in the frequency/wave-number domain so that the displacement response of the ground may be computed. The eigen-solution expansion method is then used to solve for the responses of the layers. This utilizes the precise integration method, in combination with the extended Wittrick-Williams algorithm, to obtain all the eigen-solutions of the ordinary differential equation. The recently developed pseudo-excitation method for structural random vibration is then used to determine the solution of the layered soil responses.