Abstract
A periodic foundation (PF) plate with rotational oscillators was used for the bending wave isolation of high-rise buildings. Previous studies concerning the PF focused on the in-plane waves. However, seismic waves easily excite bending waves for the periodic foundation plate structure. This study broke through the limitation of plane wave research by studying the bending wave dispersion curves. The finite element method was employed to calculate the bending wave Attenuation Zones (AZs) of the PF plate by the SHELL element which can consider the influence of the plate thickness of the plate. The influences of the material and geometrical parameters on the bending wave AZs were comprehensively investigated. The effectiveness of the PF was demonstrated via a three-dimensional finite element model under incident harmonic bending-waves and seismic waves. The results show that the bending wave AZs are sensitive to the width and elastic modulus of the linkers. The bending wave AZs of the PFs were lower than 10 Hz, and the seismic isolation efficiency was greater than 60% compared to the concrete foundation, which is sufficient for it to serve as a seismic isolation foundation for high-rise buildings.
Earthquake hazards are predominantly relative to infrastructure costs in repair, and some serious issues are relative to safety and fatalities and human survival. The application safety of buildings is a crucial issue for designers. Over the past four decades, innovative research and methods of seismic isolation have been propose
Traditional seismic isolation systems have both advantages and disadvantage. The passive isolation bearings commonly used in engineering include lead-rubber bearings, friction-type bearings, and hydraulic viscous damper
The most obvious characteristic of a periodic structure (i.e., phononic crystal) is the periodicity in the configuration and the distinctive band gap phenomeno
As a new type of seismic isolation technique, the PF possesses a particular seismic isolation performance due to the unique dynamic characteristic of the frequency bandgap, which is also referred to as the attenuation zone (AZ). Due to the different generation mechanisms of AZs, the PFs can be divided into Bragg scattering PFs and locally resonant PF
This novel dynamic property has motivated researchers to fabricate periodic structures to isolate seismic waves from buildings. For instance, Jia et al
Study found that the vertical bearing capacity of the 1D PF is poor and cannot support high-rise buildings due to the rubber layers. The arrangement of the 3D PF is too complex to be manufactured in practice. The 2D PF can meet the seismic isolation requirements of high-rise buildings both in bearing capacity and vibration reduction effectiveness. The 2D PF is effective for the incident in-plane waves, which were commonly investigated in the previous researc
The differences between the present and previous PF research are mainly in the following aspects. Firstly, the limitation of the plane wave study was broken through, and the bending wave dispersion curves were studied. Secondly, the SHELL element rather than the plane strain element was chosen for calculating the AZ, therefore, the influence of the plate thickness was considered. Thirdly, a 3D model of a 10-storey (high-rise) building was built, which has broad applicability for modern engineering. Finally, vertical excitation was added, which can generate bending waves propagating along the horizontal plane. Therefore, the simulation is used to validate the bending wave dispersion curves and AZs. As the local site conditions did not prominently affect the reduction capacity of the AZ
In this paper, a type of 2D periodic plate with rotational oscillators was used as the PF. The bending wave AZs were investigated to analyze the dynamic resistance of the overall structure under the bending wave. The rest of the paper was organized as follows. The finite element method was used to calculate the bending wave AZ of the PF in the second part. The influence of different materials and geometrical parameters on the AZs was discussed in the third section. Then, the bending wave forbidden characteristic of the PF with a ten-story superstructure (SS) is validated via numerical simulation. The mechanism of PF isolation was studied by analyzing the natural vibration characteristics of the structural systems. Finally, the conclusions were obtained.
Modern buildings tend to be tall buildings. The ten-story frame was taken as an example. because the frame structure, which usually is set up on a raft foundation, is a common structure type for high-rise buildings. Therefore, a ten-story SS was constructed on a foundation, as presented in

Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of foundation with SS
A surface wave is one of the main types of seismic waves that are trapped near the surface of the earth. For a foundation plate, the surface ground wave predominantly excites the bending wave. Therefore, the bending wave bands were investigated in the present study to analyze the structural response of the foundation plate. The basic plate theories implemented for studying an elastic plate are the thick plate theory and the thin plate theor
Without consideration of body force, the displacement for harmonic elastic wave propagation in a homogeneous elastic medium is represented by the following time-independent equatio
(1) |
where λ and μ are Lame constants; ρ is the mass density; u=[u, v, w] is the displacement vector; ω is the angular frequency; is the Hamiltonian operator. When the 3D solid model is degenerated into a plate model, and the bending wave propagates along the x-y plane (i.e., the periodic plane), and the z-axis is in the direction of the plate thickness, then the wave equation for the bending wave of the thick plate can be written a
(2) |
(3) |
(4) |
where υ is the Poisson ratio; d is the thickness of the plate; t is time; G is the shear modulus; Θx and Θy are the angle around the x-axis and the y-axis, respectively; D=E
The ideal periodic structure is formed by the infinite repetition of the same typical cells in space, which is similar to the crystal structure. The ideal periodic structure is a lattice structure composed of typical cells distributed along the three basic translation vectors a1, a2, and a3. These three basic translation vectors are called base vectors. For this paper, a 2D periodic structure with a square lattice was studied. The lattice vector is R=[R1, R2]=n1a1+n2a2, where and are integers. The Brillouin zone is defined by the reciprocal lattice vector G=m1b1+m2b2, where m1 and m2 are integers. The corresponding reciprocal base vectors b1 and b2 can be expressed as (2π/a) and (0,2π/a). The constant a is the typical cell size.
According to the Bloch-Floquet theorem, the typical cell with periodic boundary conditions as detailed in Subsection 2.2, which can be used to represent the infinite periodic structures. The motion of the periodic domain can be expressed as follows
, | (5) |
where r is the position vector; is the Bloch wave vector limited to the first irreducible Brillouin zone; u is the vector of generalized nodal displacements; i=1,2,3.
Due to the geometric complexity of the typical cell, the finite element (FE) technique was employed. Condition (5) can be enforced directly in the governing Eqs. (
, | (6) |
where and are the assembled stiffness and mass matrices for the typical cell.
According to
(7) |
(8) |
where superscripts “Re” and “Im” denote real and imaginary parts of the domains.

(a) Typical cell with periodic boundary condition

(b) meshed typical cell
Fig. 2 Typical cell with periodic boundary condition and meshed typical cell
In this study, ANSYS, in which SHELL181 was used, was applied to solve the eigenvalue problem (i.e.,
The finite element method was used to calculate the AZ of the structure in this work. The proposed method was verified by being comparing it with previously reported numerical research results. The periodic slabs in both reported studies exhibited a square configuration. In the study conducted by Qian et al

(a) The comparison between the proposed method and the method proposed by Qian et al

(b) The comparison between the proposed method and the method proposed by Hsu et al.
Fig. 3 Band structure of phononic crystal plate with square lattice
The key and foundational research on PFs is to determine the low frequency and wide AZ, which is suitable for engineering applications. The side length of a typical cell was set as . The core radius was ; the hole radius was ; the width of rubber bar was ; and the thicknesses of the matrix, rubber linkers, and core were , respectively, as shown in
Material | ρ/(kg/ | E/GPa | υ |
---|---|---|---|
Concrete | 2 500 | 30 | 0.2 |
Rubber | 1 157.3 |
3.5×1 | 0.469 |
Steel | 7 741.3 | 210 | 0.274 |
Pb | 11 600 | 40.8 | 0.37 |
Al | 2 716 | 70 | 0.3 |
Cu | 8 900 | 108 | 0.34 |
Ti | 4 500 | 110 | 0.34 |
Fe | 7 890 | 210 | 0.3 |

Fig. 4 Bending-wave dispersion diagram of a typical cell
The starting and ending frequencies and the width of the attenuation zone (WAZ) are three important parameters of the AZ. If the full AZ covered the dominant frequency range of an earthquake, the periodic foundation can isolate the seismic waves. Therefore, we should know how the parameters influence the AZ, and then obtain the optimized design parameters, especially on the first AZ. Due to its low frequency, the AZ is more valuable for seismic isolation. The characteristics of the AZs are closely related to the material parameter, component size, and structural constructio

Fig. 5 Influence of plate thickness on AZs

Fig. 6 Influence of the width of rubber linker on AZs

Fig. 7 Influence of the rubber elastic modulus on AZ
The influence of the core material on the AZ was studied by keeping the core size unchanged and only changing their material. The material parameters of the core are listed in

Fig. 8 Influence of the core material on AZs
The bending wave AZ was calculated based on an infinite medium. However, the practical structure is finite. Therefore, a practical simulation model was established to further verify the effectiveness of PF in filtering seismic waves. The optimized parameters were used based on the above discussions and practical engineering requirements. The periodic constant of the typical cell was 2.5 m; the steel core radius was 0.625 m; the hole radius was 1.125 m; and the width of rubber linker width was 0.25 m. The thicknesses of the matrix, rubber linkers, and core were dmatrix, dlinker, dcore =1.25, 1.15, 1.15 m, respectively. This was a gap equaling 0.05 m between the ground and rotational resonator, as well as the supersurface of plate. This configuration can make the rotational resonator move freely without touching the ground or the SS. The AZs have no obvious change because the thicknesses of the matrix, rubber linkers, and core are similar. Accordingly, only the thickness, dmatrix = 1.25 m, was used in the calculation of dispersion curve. The material parameters for each part are shown in
The PF was composed of 4×8 typical cells. A ten-story frame structure with a story height of h=3 m was constructed on the foundation plate, as shown in

Fig. 9 CF with SS and PF with SS
(a) CF with SS (b) PF with SS
Key nodes that were normalized to the periodic constant on the PF were selected as the observed points (shown as the circle dots along the center line on the foundation surface in
In numerical analyses, the harmonic incident bending waves propagating along the x-direction were considered. The harmonic analyses were performed with a series of frequencies (f) to examine the dynamic responses of the PF combined with an SS. The observed frequency range of vibrations was 0-20 Hz and the step was 0.1 Hz, which were within and outside of the designed AZs. The input load function can be expressed as P=sin(2πft) cm. The governing equations and principles of the harmonic response simulation for small-amplitude excitations have previously been reporte
The black solid line in

(a) HN=2

(b) HN=4

(c) HN=6

(d) HN=8
Fig. 10 Frequency response curves of observation points HN=2, HN=4, HN=6 and HN=8 under the bending waves
The designed periodic structure owns the AZ characteristics. If the incident wave with frequencies is located on the AZ, the wave propagation will be isolated. However, if the incident wave with frequencies is outside the AZ, the amplitude of the wave will not be reduced or will even be amplified. In

(a) VF=1

(b) VF=5

(c) VF=10
Fig. 11 Frequency response curves of observation points VF=1, VF=5, and VF=10 under the bending waves
This section aims to illustrate the applicability of PF under seismic waves. Two seismic waves were applied: the Oroville wave (August 1, 1975, Component 037 recorded by CDWR Station 1051, Cal.) and the Santa Felicia dam wave (San Fernando earthquake of February 9, 1971, Station No. 0284, 34.461N, 118.751W, Cal.

(a) VF=0

(b) VF=1

(c) VF=5

(d) VF=10
Fig. 12 Acceleration response of vertical observation points VF=0 (i.e., HN=4), VF=1, VF=5, and VF=10 under the incident of the Oroville wave
The effectiveness of the proposed periodic foundation (PF) was determined by whether the frequencies were in the AZs. The time domain results were further analyzed in the frequency domain to investigate the effectiveness of the AZs in the special frequency domain. The frequency spectrum of point VF=10 was analyzed by Fourier transform. The Fourier spectrum of the incident seismic wave is shown in

Fig. 13 Fourier transform of acceleration response at point VF=10 under the Oroville wave ground motion

(a) VF=0

(b) VF=1

(c) VF=5

(d) VF=10
Fig. 14 Acceleration response of vertical observation points VF=0 (i.e., HN=4), VF=1, VF=5 and VF=10 under the incident Santa Felicia wave
In

Fig. 15 Fourier transform of acceleration response at point VF=10 under Santa wave ground motion
The peak reduction for PF compared with CF is 92% and 86%, respectively, in
To illustrate the generation mechanism of the AZ, the vibration modes of the structures for specific frequencies were analyzed. Mode analysi

Fig. 16 Inherent frequency analysis

Fig. 17 Vibration modes of structures with PF at points
The rotational oscillators vibrate as mass-spring oscillators. The self-resonant frequencies of the model can be expressed as . The composition of forces from the rotational oscillators to the concrete matrix is nonzero and split the original dispersion curves, resulting in generation of the AZ. There are 32 oscillators in the foundation plate and each oscillator has its distinctive motion, but shows the same form in this specific frequency. Therefore, the different combinations of all oscillator vibrations formed a flat-straight segment near f = 5.97 and 9.40 Hz. Not all flat segments in the frequency curves of PF can generate AZs.
There is an approximate flat bench in the frequency curves of the CF and SS in

Fig. 18 Vibration modes of structures with CF at points and SS at point
The PF with rotational oscillators was studied. The influence of geometric and material parameters on the bending wave AZ was discovered. Based on these results, the performance of a finite PF with high-rise SS was conducted. The PF isolation principle was analyzed from the perspective of the natural structural vibration. The results show that the isolation effectiveness of the PF is better than that of the CF under seismic waves. Note that the frequencies of the AZs can be designed, and the attenuation effectiveness of the foundation with SS should be verified by experiments in further research. The following conclusions can be drawn:
1) The bending wave dispersion relationships of the PF were investigated. The PF with rotational oscillators could produce bending wave AZs in the low-frequency region (f <10 Hz), which can effectively reduce the propagation of seismic waves. This characteristic comprises the deficiency of the current isolation system.
2) The AZ is very sensitive to the width and elastic modulus of rubber linkers. In practical applications, it is easier to change the elastic modulus to obtain the deserved AZs and to satisfy different isolation requirements.
3) The PF exhibits effective isolation if the periodic number is up to four. The attenuation feature not only appeared at the PF, but was also effective for the attachment on the PF. The attenuation of the acceleration was more than 60% compared to the traditional CF under the Oroville wave and the Santa Felicia wave. The peak reduction for PF compared with CF is 92% and 86% for these two waves, respectively. The periodic system provides the feasibility of new base-isolation design for high-rise buildings under the vertical dynamic loadings associated with earthquakes.
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