Periodic pile barriers for Rayleigh wave isolation in a poroelastic half-space

A detailed investigation is carried out to investigate the use of periodic piles as wave barriers for Rayleigh wave isolation from the perspective of periodic theory in solid state physics. Specifically, this study tries to figure out two questions: At what frequency can the Rayleigh wave be blocked by multi-rows of piles? And in what way does the Rayleigh wave decay? From above point of view, the Biot's theory and Floquet-Bloch theory are employed to simplify the analysis of the pile-soil system. Based on the derived formulation, the attenuation zone of Rayleigh waves is calculated by dispersion analysis using finite element method in three-dimensional contexts. Through comparison with harmonic response, it is found that the frequency range of Rayleigh wave reduction and the screening capability agree well with the theoretical attenuation zone and the attenuation coefficient, respectively. It is concluded that the dispersion analysis provides basic information for Rayleigh wave isolation using piles, including the frequency range and the form of decay. The present investigation could open up new horizons for the design of wave barriers.