Effectiveness of a Trench Filled with Waste Material in Reducing the Propagation of Ground Vibration Induced by Soil Roller Compaction

Abstract

The vibration generated by construction activities is transferred through soil media to the surroundings and has influence on the surrounding structures. However, the response of the structures may depend on the amount of energy received by them. The objective of this study is to investigate the characteristics of ground vibration induced by soil roller compaction and the effectiveness of waste material in reducing the propagation of the ground vibration. Several construction sites where soil compaction has been done by rollers were selected for this study. A site with a stone crushing machine which induces ground vibration similar to roller compaction (i.e., frequency and magnitude) was selected for the investigation of the effectiveness of waste material in reducing the propagation of ground vibration. A trench was introduced in the path of vibration wave propagation. The ground vibration was measured by using a four channel seismograph in the open trench and for the trench filled with locally available waste material such as rice husk and bottom ash. When operating a soil roller compactor, ground vibration in the horizontal directions (i.e., transverse and longitudinal directions)are greater than those in the vertical direction. Rice husk, compacted rice husk and bottom ash contributed to the reduction of ground vibration by 38%, 42% and 49% respectively in the transverse direction and by 14 %, 22 %, and 47 %, respectively in the longitudinal direction indicating that rice husk and bottom ash can be effectively used as in-filled damping layers.