Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2022) 137: 503
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-022-02692-w

Regular Article

Study the propagation characteristics of P₁-wave passing through composite multilayer wave impeding block in unsaturated soil

¹ School of Civil Engineering, Qinghai University, 810016, Xining, China
² Qinghai Provincial Key Laboratory of Energy-Saving Building Materials and Engineering Safety, 810016, Xining, China

^b maqiang0104@163.com

Received: 8 December 2021
Accepted: 5 April 2022
Published online: 23 April 2022

Abstract

Based on the propagation theory of elastic waves in unsaturated porous medium and single-phase elastic medium, considering that a composite multilayer wave impeding block (WIB) with a certain thickness is set in the unsaturated soil foundation, and using Helmholtz vector decomposition theorem, the analytical solutions of transmitted/reflected amplitude ratio of P₁-wave passing through a composite multilayer wave impeding block in the unsaturated soil foundation are derived. The influences of physical and mechanical parameters such as wave impedance ratio, saturation, shear modulus and density of interlayer wave impeding block on the propagation characteristics of P₁-wave passing through the composite multilayer wave impeding block in the unsaturated soil foundation are analyzed by numerical examples. The results show that the saturation has little influence on the transmission/reflection ratio of P₁-wave and S-wave, but has a significant influence on the transmission/reflection ratio of P₂-wave and P₃-wave. The wave impedance ratio and shear modulus of interlayer wave impeding block material have a significant influence on the transmission/reflection coefficient. The best vibration isolation effect can be obtained by selecting the optimal wave impedance ratio and shear modulus of interlayer wave impeding block material, which may be provided a design criteria for the application of the composite multilayer wave impeding block in the vibration control field of the unsaturated soil foundations.