CEE 200-1 Seminar

Dr. Christos Vrettos, Professor of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, Germany, will present: “Protection Of Buildings From Railway-Generated Ground Vibrations”.

Summary:
Vibrations caused by surface or underground railway traffic may spread throughout the building structure being perceived as annoying vibration or as secondary structure-borne noise. In the worst case, structural damage to the building foundations or damage to sensitive equipment may occur. The induced vibrations depend on the characteristics of the emission source, the transmission through the ground, the coupling of the building foundation to the subsoil, and the vibration spread within the building structure. The frequencies involved range from 10 to 100 Hz, thus requiring complex computer-aided analyses for the reliable prediction of the vibration level. Measurements are indispensable part of such investigations. Simple and advanced prediction schemes for the different parts of the vibration propagation chain are elucidated. Appropriate countermeasures at the source, along the transmission path, and at the place of emission in the building are described. Finally, some challenging case-studies are presented showing the application of the design concepts in practice.

Biography:
Dr. Christos Vrettos is Professor of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern in Germany. He holds Dipl.‐Ing. and Dr.‐Ing. degrees from the University of Karlsruhe, and a habilitation from the Technical University of Berlin. He spent several years in the construction industry and geotechnical consulting. His expertise covers soil mechanics and foundation engineering, soil dynamics and geotechnical earthquake engineering, vibration protection, numerical methods in geomechanics, extra-terrestrial soil mechanics, and terramechanics. Notable projects include deep excavations and high rise building foundations in urban areas, tailing dams, immersed tunnels, and ground improvement. He is member of several DIN and European code committees on geotechnical and on seismic design topics. He is author of numerous publications, reviewer for major journals and editor-in-chief of “geotechnik” (www.uni‐kl.de/bg).