Effective vibrating barriers design for the Zoser pyramid using artificial neural network

Vibrating Barrier (ViBa) is a non-invasive strategy used to protect buildings, especially ancient and historic structures, from seismic wave vibrations. The ViBa is a spring-mass device installed at a separate location beneath the ground surrounding the structure in concern, for the purpose of reducing ground motion energy, without any intervention with the structure itself. The step pyramid of Zoser was one of the archeological monuments affected by the 1992 Earthquake in Egypt. In this work, a new approach of ViBa design is proposed to protect the step pyramid of Zoser using Artificial Neural Network (ANN). A numerical model was developed to test the predicted pyramid seismic behavior using the ANN-derived ViBa parameters. The ANN optimization approach shows a reduction in the peak step pyramid acceleration by 46 %. This reduction was obtained using tuning and optimization of the developed ANN.