Effects of Underground Cavities on the Frequency Spectrum of Seismic Shear Waves

A numerical method is proposed to study the scattering of seismic shear waves induced by the presence of underground cavities in homogeneous soils. The method is based on the superposition of two solutions: the solution of the free-wave propagation problem in a uniform half-space, easily determined...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAdvances in Civil Engineering Vol. 2014; no. 2014; pp. 15 - 31
Main Authors Tonti, L., Quagliarini, E., Bernetti, R., Lancioni, G.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cairo, Egypt Hindawi Limiteds 01.01.2014
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Hindawi Limited
Wiley
Subjects
Analysis
Caves
Civil engineering
Codes
Design
Earthquake engineering
Earthquakes
Programming languages
Propagation
Seismic engineering
Wave propagation
United States
Italy
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Summary:A numerical method is proposed to study the scattering of seismic shear waves induced by the presence of underground cavities in homogeneous soils. The method is based on the superposition of two solutions: the solution of the free-wave propagation problem in a uniform half-space, easily determined analytically, and the solution of the wave scattering problem due to the cave presence, evaluated numerically by means of an ad hoc code implemented by using the ANSYS Parametric Design Language. In the two-dimensional setting, this technique is applied to the case of a single cave, placed at a certain depth from the ground level. The frequency spectrum of the seismic shear oscillation on the ground surface is determined for different dimensions and depths of the cave and compared with the spectrum registered without caves. The influence of the cave dimensions and depth on the spectrum amplification is analyzed and discussed.
ISSN:1687-8086
1687-8094
DOI:10.1155/2014/934284