Towards Earthquake Shields: A Numerical Investigation of Earthquake Shielding with Seismic Crystals

Baris Baykant Alagoz, Serkan Alagoz

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DOI: 10.4236/oja.2011.13008                

Abstract

Authors numerically demonstrate that the seismic surface waves from an earthquake can be attenuated by a seismic crystal structure constructed on the ground. In the study, seismic crystals with a lattice constant of kilometer are investigated in the aspect of band gaps (Stop band), and some design considerations for earthquake shielding are discussed for various crystal configurations in a theoretical manner. Authors observed in their FDTD based 2D wave simulation results that the proposed earthquake shield can provide a decreasing in magnitude of surface seismic waves. Such attenuation of seismic waves might reduce the damage in an earthquake.

Keywords

Earthquake Shielding, Seismic Metamaterials, Seismic Wave Attenuation, Band Gap Analysis

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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