Response of soil media due to impulse loads and isolation using trenches

This paper examines the effectiveness of open and filled trenches for screening Rayleigh waves due to impulse loads for 3D problems. The effects of the geometric parameters of trench reducing ground displacements are studied in detail. The computational scheme involves the use of finite element method to discretize a large computational domain and the resulting integration dynamic equilibrium equations are integrated to get the response using Newmark's β method. Soil has been idealized as linear, isotropic continuum.