Dynamic response of buildings due to trains in underground tunnels

Abstract

The interaction of a tunnel-soil-building system due to trains is investigated by a substructure technique. The soil medium is assumed to be a viscoelastic halfspace. The method of wave function expansion is used to construct the displacement fields in terms of potentials. The total soil-structure interaction problem is decomposed into a foundation radiation problem and a tunnel radiation problem. The impedance matrices for the corresponding substructure problems are obtained using a collocation technique. The steady state response of buildings for a given tunnel-foundation geometry is determined using the impedance matrix. Hence, the response of the building to train loading at different speeds is evaluated and compared with allowable vibration limits.