Analysis of damping in a visco-elastic layered half-space

This paper considers the damping caused by an additional layer in a layered half-space. The damping layer in the three-layer system has elastic or visco-elastic properties, and its stiffness is ten times lower than the stiffness of the other two layers. The problem of wave propagation induced by a pressure pulse on the surface of a layered half-space is modeled as a plane strain task and solved numerically using the finite element method and the ABAQUS/Standard software. An analysis of selected calculation results for vertical displacements and accelerations leads to the conclusion that the reduction of the initial Young’s modulus has a greater impact on vibration damping than accounting for the viscous properties of the material (with relaxation times corresponding to road materials).
ANALYSIS OF DAMPING IN VISCO-ELASTIC LAYERED HALF-SPACE
In this work, the damping caused by an extra layer in layered half-space is considered.
Damping layer in the three-layer system has elastic or visco-elastic properties with stiffness about ten times smaller than the stiffness of the other two layers. The problem of propagation of the wave induced by pressure pulse in an infinite elastic half-space layer is modelled as a plane strain case and solved using a finite element package ABAQUS /
Standard. Analyzing selected results for the vertical components of displacement and acceleration vectors can be concluded that reduction of the initial Young’s modulus has a greater impact on increasing the damping properties than taking into account the viscous properties of the material (with relaxation times corresponding road materials).
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