Vibration Control of a Cluster of Buildings through the Vibrating Barrier

A novel device, called vibrating barrier (ViBa), that aims to reduce the vibrations of adjacent structures subjected to ground motion waves has been recently proposed. The ViBa is a structure buried in the soil and detached from surrounding buildings that is able to absorb a significant portion of the dynamic energy arising from the ground motion. The working principle exploits the dynamic interaction among vibrating structures due to the propagation of waves through the soil, namely the structure-soil-structure interaction. In this paper the efficiency of the ViBa is investigated to control the vibrations of a cluster of buildings. To this aim a discrete model of structures-site interaction involving multiple buildings and the ViBa is developed. In particular, the effects of the soil on the structures, i.e. the soil-structure interaction (SSI) as well as the structure-soilstructure interaction (SSSI) and the ViBa-soil-structures interaction are taken into account in this paper by means of linear elastic springs as in the conventional Winkler approach for a linear elastic soil medium. Closed-form solutions are derived to design the ViBa in the case of harmonic excitation from the analysis of discrete models. Advanced Finite Element numerical simulations are performing in order to assess the efficiency of the ViBa in protecting one or more buildings. Parametric studies are also conducted to identify beneficial/adverse effects in the use of the proposed vibration control strategy to protect cluster of buildings.