Effect of sand bags on vibration reduction in road subgrade

Sand bags can serve as cushions for road subgrade, thereby reducing the impact of vibration on the surroundings. The effect of layered sand bags on vibration was studied experimentally. Under lateral confinement conditions, the expression for the effective soil pressure associated with medium sand at the sand bag epicentre was obtained. The expression was validated by comparing the calculated results with experimental data. The influence of the filling material in woven bags, source frequency, and number of exciters on vibration reduction was investigated. The source frequency is an important factor in evaluating the reduction effect of sand bags. For the same filling material, the larger the vertical stress, the greater is the peak acceleration. The influence of the number of exciters on the effective soil pressure is greater than that on the acceleration. The peak acceleration of medium sand with bags is considerably smaller than that without bags.