DEM Simulation of Soilbag Vibration Reduction and Energy Dissipation

Soilbags have been understood to have the effect of cheap and easy to acquire, besides, they have the effect of vibration reduction and can be used as a kind of base isolation in building foundations. However, research on the effect of soilbag vibration reduction is practically based on test results at present, the mechanism of it had rarely studied. Based on the principle of soilbag energy dissipation, the discrete element method was used to build energy dissipation equation during the process of soilbag vibration reduction in this paper. Firstly, using the technical of discrete element method to establish every part of soilbag energy dissipation equations, through numerical simulation of a single soilbag under simple vertical load transmitted by a upper wall from 10N increased up to 100N with an increment of 10N, results show that internal force work was almost equals to external force work, this can from energy conservation perspective to verify that the calculation of each part of soilbag energy is reasonable, meanwhile proving the correctness of the established equations of energy dissipation. After that energy dissipation of a single soilbag was simulated using the verified energy dissipation equation under cyclic loading rates of 500N/s, 1000N/s, 2000N/s and 5000N/s three times, respectively. The numerical simulation results show that the percentage of total energy consumption is fluctuated with loading and unloading, and the total percentage is over 75% of the total energy, this means soilbag can play a good effect on energy dissipation.