Abstract: The vibration induced by human activities such as rail traffic, power machine, blast construction and pile driving could seriously influence the normal use of adjacent buildings, the production and use of precision instruments, and the normal production and life of human beings. The control of environmental vibration has become a research focus of soil dynamics. In this paper, a newly designed combined vibration isolation barrier, i.e., wave impeding block (WIB) with incorporation of Duxseal (DXWIB), is proposed to reduce the ground vibrations, and the isolation performance is evaluated by field experiment under harmonic vertical excitation within 0–3 s. Through a set of tests, the amplitude and mean value of ground vibration acceleration and displacement with different embedded depths, DXWIB thicknesses, excitation forces and excitation frequencies are obtained and compared. The corresponding curves of amplitude attenuation ratio are drawn. The test results show that: compared with vibration in the horizontal direction, the isolation effect of DXWIB on ground vertical vibration is better. The vibration isolation efficiency of DXWIB barrier varies unevenly with the distance. When DXWIB is embedded in the foundation, the attenuation coefficient of surface displacement amplitude is less than 1. Compared with the influence factors such as DXWIB thickness, excitation force and excitation frequency, the embedment depth of DXWIB has the most significant influence on the vibration isolation effect, and there is a best buried depth and a critical thickness. DXWIB can improve the characteristics of WIB only for low-frequency vibration damping below 10 Hz, and increase the frequency bandwidth of vibration damping. From the experimental data, it has good vibration isolation effect at 5–70 Hz.

Key words: field test, WIB-Duxseal combined vibration isolation, vertical excitation, vibration isolation effectiveness