An analytical solution to scattering of SH waves by a semi-circular viscoelastic weathered canyon

The soil and topographic amplification effects of a weathered canyon may pose a potential threat to the dynamic stability of the engineering structures (i.e., dams, buildings and bridges) located in such kind of sites. To reveal the influence of the surficial inhomogeneous viscoelastic soil layer of a weathered canyon on the ground motion, an analytical solution to scattering of SH waves by a semi-circular viscoelastic weathered canyon is presented in frequency domain in this paper using the wave function expansion method. Then, the frequency domain results are transformed into the time domain results using the inverse fast Fourier transform (iFFT) algorithm. The parametrical analysis indicates that the amplitude, duration and energy distribution during seismic wave propagation are significantly affected by the surficial inhomogeneous soil layer of the viscoelastic weathered canyon.