Study on Shear Wave Attenuation Laws in Granular Sediments Based on Bender Element Test Simulations
2025
Jingyu Tan | Yong Wang | Xuewen Lei | Jingqiang Miao
The propagation characteristics of shear waves in granular sediments are usually used to assess the dynamic response and liquefaction potential of marine engineering foundations. However, the mesoscopic processes by which the excitation frequency influences the shear wave propagation and attenuation remain unclear. In this study, based on a triaxial bender element (BE) test model, the shear wave behavior in uniform spherical particles was simulated by the discrete element method (DEM). It revealed that the BE excites shear waves in a point source manner and that the propagation processes within a triaxial unit cell assembly follow exponential attenuation patterns. Near the vibration source (10–100 kHz), the attenuation law of spherical wave propagation is dominated by friction slip and geometric diffusion in particles. At 0.7–3.5 wavelengths, the shear waves progressively transition to plane waves, and the attenuation law is governed by boundary absorption and viscous damping. At 2.9–10 wavelengths, near-field effects diminish, and planar wave propagation stabilizes. Higher excitation frequencies enhance friction slip, boundary absorption, and viscous damping, leading to frequency-dependent attenuation. The granular system exhibits segmented filtering, with cutoff frequencies dependent on the receiver location but independent of the excitation frequency.
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