No Arabic abstract
The study of granular crystals, metamaterials that consist of closely packed arrays of particles that interact elastically, is a vibrant area of research that combines ideas from disciplines such as materials science, nonlinear dynamics, and condensed-matter physics. Granular crystals, a type of nonlinear metamaterial, exploit geometrical nonlinearities in their constitutive microstructure to produce properties (such as tunability and energy localization) that are not conventional to engineering materials and linear devices. In this topical review, we focus on recent experimental, computational, and theoretical results on nonlinear coherent structures in granular crystals. Such structures --- which include traveling solitary waves, dispersive shock waves, and discrete breathers --- have fascinating dynamics, including a diversity of both transient features and robust, long-lived patterns that emerge from broad classes of initial data. In our review, we primarily discuss phenomena in one-dimensional crystals, as most research has focused on such scenarios, but we also present some extensions to two-dimensional settings. Throughout the review, we highlight open problems and discuss a variety of potential engineering applications that arise from the rich dynamic response of granular crystals.
We investigate nonlinear localized modes at light-mass impurities in a one-dimensional, strongly-compressed chain of beads under Hertzian contacts. Focusing on the case of one or two such defects, we analyze the problems linear limit to identify the system eigenfrequencies and the linear defect modes. We then examine the bifurcation of nonlinear defect modes from their linear counterparts and study their linear stability in detail. We identify intriguing differences between the case of impurities in contact and ones that are not in contact. We find that the former bears similarities to the single defect case, whereas the latter features symmetry-breaking bifurcations with interesting static and dynamic implications.
We study ``nanoptera, which are non-localized solitary waves with exponentially small but non-decaying oscillations, in two singularly-perturbed Hertzian chains with precompression. These two systems are woodpile chains (which we model as systems of Hertzian particles and springs) and diatomic Hertzian chains with alternating masses. We demonstrate that nanoptera arise from Stokes phenomena and appear as special curves, called Stokes curves, are crossed in the complex plane. We use techniques from exponential asymptotics to obtain approximations of the oscillation amplitudes. Our analysis demonstrates that traveling waves in a singularly perturbed woodpile chain have a single Stokes curve, across which oscillations appear. Comparing these asymptotic predictions with numerical simulations reveals that this accurately describes the non-decaying oscillatory behavior in a woodpile chain. We perform a similar analysis of a diatomic Hertzian chain, that the nanpteron solution has two distinct exponentially small oscillatory contributions. We demonstrate that there exists a set of mass ratios for which these two contributions cancel to produce localized solitary waves. This result builds on prior experimental and numerical observations that there exist mass ratios that support localized solitary waves in diatomic Hertzian chains without precompression. Comparing asymptotic and numerical results in a diatomic Hertzian chain with precompression reveals that our exponential asymptotic approach accurately predicts the oscillation amplitude for a wide range of system parameters, but it fails to identify several values of the mass ratio that correspond to localized solitary-wave solutions.
We investigate numerically and experimentally the influence of coupling disorder on the self-trapping dynamics in nonlinear one-dimensional optical waveguide arrays. The existence of a lower and upper bound of the effective average propagation constant allows for a generalized definition of the threshold power for the onset of soliton localization. When compared to perfectly ordered systems, this threshold is found to decrease in the presence of coupling disorder.
Motivated by experiments in electroconvection in nematic liquid crystals with homeotropic alignment we study the coupled amplitude equations describing the formation of a stationary roll pattern in the presence of a weakly-damped mode that breaks isotropy. The equations can be generalized to describe the planarly aligned case if the orienting effect of the boundaries is small, which can be achieved by a destabilizing magnetic field. The slow mode represents the in-plane director at the center of the cell. The simplest uniform states are normal rolls which may undergo a pitchfork bifurcation to abnormal rolls with a misaligned in-plane director.We present a new class of defect-free solutions with spatial modulations perpendicular to the rolls. In a parameter range where the zig-zag instability is not relevant these solutions are stable attractors, as observed in experiments. We also present two-dimensionally modulated states with and without defects which result from the destabilization of the one-dimensionally modulated structures. Finally, for no (or very small) damping, and away from the rotationally symmetric case, we find static chevrons made up of a periodic arrangement of defect chains (or bands of defects) separating homogeneous regions of oblique rolls with very small amplitude. These states may provide a model for a class of poorly understood stationary structures observed in various highly-conducting materials (prechevrons or broad domains).
We study wave propagation in two-dimensional granular crystals under the Hertzian contact law consisting of hexagonal packings of spheres under various basin geometries including hexagonal, triangular, and circular basins which can be tiled with hexagons. We find that the basin geometry will influence wave reflection at the boundaries, as expected, and also may result in bottlenecks forming. While exterior strikers the size of a single sphere have been considered in the literature, it is also possible to consider strikers which impact multiple spheres along a boundary, or to have multiple sides being struck simultaneously. It is also possible to consider obstructions or even strikers in the interior of the hexagonally packed granular crystal, as previously considered in the case of square packings, resulting in the basin geometry no longer forming a convex set. We consider various configurations of either boundary or interior strikers. We shall also consider the case where a granular crystal is composed of two separate crystals of differing material, with a single interface between the two distinct materials. Depending on the relative material properties of each type of sphere, this can result in a trapping of most of the wave energy within one of the two regions. While repeated reflections from the boundaries will cause the systems we study to fall into disorder for large time, there are a number of interesting wave structures and patters that emerge as transients at intermediate timescales.