Spectral Element Method for Dynamic Response of Multilayered Half Medium Subjected to Harmonic Moving Load

Abstract

In this paper, the spectral element method (SEM) is presented to analyze the dynamic response of a multilayered half medium subjected to a harmonic moving load. In SEM, the spectral stiffness matrix of one-node and two-node elements in the wave-number domain can be derived based on the Fourier transformation and principle of wave superposition. Then, the spectral global matrix of the model can be obtained by assembling the nodded stiffness matrices of all layers. The corresponding solution in the wave-number and frequency domain is further recovered by the Fourier series and fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm. At last, several numerical examples were given to validate the accuracy of the proposed method and illustrate the influence of load speed and frequency, as well as the interlayer condition of pavement, on the simulation results.