Seismic protection of buildings and structures using metamaterials: current status and development prospects

Abstract

Due to the compaction of urban development and increase in its number of floors, the number of studies in the field of protection of buildings and structures from seismic waves is growing in the world, as the wave seismic front in the soil mass can lead to enormous destruction and mass casualties. The most common methods of seismic protection of buildings and structures in civil engineering today are constructive and territorial methods. The first method includes a set of structural measures, among of them an important place is occupied by the use of seismic isolators – special devices inserted into the foundation and reducing inertial seismic effects on building structures. The second way is the use of various barriers in the path of seismic wave propagation. In recent years, there has been a clear trend towards finding new approaches to territorial seismic protection. The analysis of academic databases revealed a large number of studies (mostly foreign) devoted to the development of ways to protect buildings and structures from wave action using various kinds of composite structures – metamaterials. Some researchers conditionally divide these methods into two groups: the first performs the tasks of masking, when the wave front deviates and wraps around the protected object, and the second creates an artificial shadow zone where seismic waves are damped without significantly affecting buildings and structures. Since the development of seismic metamaterials is still a new but certainly promising area of research for Russian science, the purpose of this review was to systematise the available data on the methods of effective protection of buildings and structures from wave impacts.