Vibration isolation system for linked pile rows and its numerical simulation

The conventional pile rows can not achieve a good vibration isolation effect when exposed to low-frequency incident waves. In view of this, a new kind of pile structure, namely, linked periodic pile rows, is proposed for the vibration isolation facility in this study. Moreover, a numerical model is developed for the simulation of the vibration isolation via linked periodic pile rows. To establish the numerical model for the linked periodic pile rows, a wave number domain boundary element method (WDBEM) model for the half-space soils and periodic pile rows is established using the sequential Fourier transform and the boundary element method. By using the WDBEM model, the coupling conditions between the pile tops and the linking beams, and the periodicity condition for the periodic system as well as the transfer matrices for the linking beams, a wave number domain numerical model for the linked periodic pile rows is proposed. By means of the proposed model, the vibration isolation effects of a single linked pile row and two linked pile rows are investigated. The numerical results indicate that compared with the conventional pile rows, the linked pile rows usually produce a better vibration isolation effect. Hence, the linked pile rows are a more effective vibration isolation facility than the conventional pile ones.