Three Dimensional Wave Propagation due to Pile Driving

A very economical and efficient method to construct pile foundations or sheet walls is given by the driving of the pile itself in the case of prefabricated piles or of the steel-sheet pipe for concrete piles in situ and also by the driving of the sheet piles in the case of sheet walls. In spite of its efficiency this method underlies, because of environment protection reasons to certain restrictions that concern the influence of the produced shock waves during the driving procedure to neighboring buildings and constructions. For the theoretical calculation of this influence at first the free-field response of the ground due to the propagated shock waves will be required. The source wave is generally of transient nature. The authors deal in this contribution with the theoretical calculation of free-field magnitudes for an elastic homogeneous half-space as an adequate model for an idealized ground