Effect of horizontal wave barriers on ground vibration propagation

The aim of this article is to introduce a method to mitigate ground surface vibration through a flexural plate coupled to the ground and acting as a horizontal wave barrier. Using the thin plate hypothesis, two flexural plates are coupled to the ground, the first plate being the excited plate and the second plate the horizontal wave barrier. For instance, the first plate may represent a slab track and be excited by the tramway wheels. A solution to the problem can be found using a spatial two-dimensional Fourier transform of the elastodynamics equation for the ground and a modal decomposition for the flexural plate vibration. The authors show that vibration is substantially mitigated by the horizontal wave barrier and depends on its thickness and width. When the top surface wavelength becomes smaller than twice the plate width, the horizontal wave barrier acts as a wave barrier in the frequency range of interest, i.e., from 20 Hz.