Vibration of layered saturated ground with a tunnel subjected to an underground moving load

Abstract The transmission of vibrations within multi-layered saturated ground subjected to an underground moving load in a tunnel is investigated theoretically. A two-dimensional model of a layered saturated half-space with an embedded beam is established first. The beam simulating the tunnel is located between two horizontal soil layers with a moving point load acting upon it. The half-space soil is assumed as Biot’s poroelastic medium and the transmission and reflection matrices (TRM) method is applied to consider the wave propagation in the layered soil. Combined with the surface boundary conditions and the continuity conditions between the soil layers and the beam, the governing equations of the ground-beam coupled system are solved by the Fourier transform. Finally, the dynamic response of the layered saturated ground in the time-space domain is obtained by using the fast Fourier transform (FFT) method. Three different soil cases are selected to study the influences of the soft/hard interlayer on dynamic response. The displacement as well as the velocity and acceleration of the surface vibration are analyzed. The displacement amplitude spectra at different depths are presented to find the attenuation law of the ground vibration along depth. The numerical results show that both the stiffness and the embedded depth of the interlayer have impacts on the critical velocity of the coupled system and the surface vibration. When the vibration propagates from the tunnel to ground surface, the high-frequency components decrease and the low-frequency components increase.