Optimal design of wave barriers for the reduction of vibration levels

In order to reduce ground vibration levels in a building, wave barriers can be introduced in the soil between the source and the building. In this contribution, the wave barriers are optimized using topology optimization to discover novel, effective design geometries. The objective is to minimize the amount of stiffer material introduced in the soil while satisfying the required vibration criteria in the building. In this way, an optimal geometry is determined that considerably reduces the required amount of stiffer material, outperforming rectangular wall barriers using the same amount of material. To make the design less sensitive to geometric imperfections, a worst case robust approach is applied. The resulting smaller sensitivity with respect to geometric imperfections also ensures that a posteriori design simplifications have a minimal impact on the barrier’s performance.