Numerical Results of Vibration Isolation Effect of Pile Group on Rayleigh Waves in a Fluid-Saturated Half-Space

Based on Biot’s theory of two-phase media, the screening effectiveness of a multi-row pile barrier system on incident Rayleigh waves in a fluid-saturated poroelastic half-space is investigated using a high-precision three-dimensional indirect boundary element method for multi-domain scattering. A companion paper has described the theoretical derivation of the model. In this paper, numerical results indicate that the scattering of waves by piles in fluid-saturated poroelastic media is different from that in single-phase elastic media. The group piles effectively reduce the vibration amplitude in the poroelastic half-space, and the dynamic response strongly depends on the incident frequency, porosity, pile length and spacing, number of pile rows, and row spacing of multi-row piles. Higher values of the frequency and porosity (i.e., softer soil) produce a better vibration isolation effect by the group piles. Special attention should be paid to piles embedded in poroelastic media, as the existence of fluid produces a negative effect on the vibration isolation compared with the case of a single-phase medium.