Seismic Waves Shielding Using Spherical Matryoshka-Like Metamaterials

Among the most destructive natural mechanical events on the planet, seismic waves cause substantial damage and degradation to infrastructure throughout the world, posing a threat to humankind. The development of seismic metamaterials opens up a new frontier for shielding buildings and infrastructure against earthquakes. Furthermore, vibrations from seismic waves propagating at the surface of the earth are mostly due to Rayleigh waves, which have low frequencies, typically below 10 Hz. Within this critical range of frequencies, we report a novel architecture optimized for shielding against seismic waves, which is denoted as a spherical Matryoshka-like seismic metamaterial. We explore the response of this system using numerical analysis based on the finite element method. The band diagram in the irreducible Brillouin zone reveals, most notably, omnidirectional stop bands. Its frequency response analysis was carried out to better explore this metamaterial’s ability to attenuate seismic waves. The findings of this study open up new pathways for designing and optimizing seismic metamaterials. Thus, offering new avenues for improving earthquake shielding.