No Arabic abstract
We study solitary wave propagation in 1D granular crystals with Hertz-like interaction potentials. We consider interfaces between media with different exponents in the interaction potential. For an interface with increasing interaction potential exponent along the propagation direction we obtain mainly transmission with delayed secondary transmitted and reflected pulses. For interfaces with decreasing interaction potential exponent we observe both significant reflection and transmission of the solitary wave, where the transmitted part of the wave forms a multipulse structure. We also investigate impurities consisting of beads with different interaction exponents compared to the media they are embedded in, and we find that the impurities cause both reflection and transmission, including the formation of multipulse structures, independent of whether the exponent in the impurities is smaller than in the surrounding media. We explain wave propagation effects at interfaces and impurities in terms of quasi-particle collisions. Next we consider wave propagation along Hertz-like granular chains of beads in the presence of disorder and periodicity in the interaction exponents present in the Hertz-like potential, modelling, for instance, inhomogeneity in the contact geometry between beads in the granular chain. We find that solitary waves in media with randomised interaction exponents (which models disorder in the contact geometry) experience exponential decay, where the dependence of the decay rate is similar to the case of randomised bead masses. In the periodic case of chains with interaction exponents alternating between two fixed values, we find qualitatively different propagation properties depending on the choice of the two exponents. In particular, we find regimes with either exponential decay or stable solitary wave propagation with pairwise collective behaviour.
Linear and nonlinear mechanisms for conical wave propagation in two-dimensional lattices are explored in the realm of phononic crystals. As a prototypical example, a statically compressed granular lattice of spherical particles arranged in a hexagonal packing configuration is analyzed. Upon identifying the dispersion relation of the underlying linear problem, the resulting diffraction properties are considered. Analysis both via a heuristic argument for the linear propagation of a wavepacket, as well as via asymptotic analysis leading to the derivation of a Dirac system suggests the occurrence of conical diffraction. This analysis is valid for strong precompression i.e., near the linear regime. For weak precompression, conical wave propagation is still possible, but the resulting expanding circular wave front is of a non-oscillatory nature, resulting from the complex interplay between the discreteness, nonlinearity and geometry of the packing. The transition between these two types of propagation is explored.
We investigate the dynamical properties of a strongly disordered micropolar lattice made up of cubic block units. This phononic lattice model supports both transverse and rotational degrees of freedom hence its disordered variant posses an interesting problem as it can be used to model physically important systems like beam-like microstructures. Different kinds of single site excitations (momentum or displacement) on the two degrees of freedom are found to lead to different energy transport both superdiffusive and subdiffusive. We show that the energy spreading is facilitated both by the low frequency extended waves and a set of high frequency modes located at the edge of the upper branch of the periodic case for any initial condition. However, the second moment of the energy distribution strongly depends on the initial condition and it is slower than the underlying one dimensional harmonic lattice (with one degree of freedom). Finally, a limiting case of the micropolar lattice is studied where Anderson localization is found to persist and no energy spreading takes place.
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.
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.
This article explores the excitation of different vibrational states in a spatially extended dynamical system through theory and experiment. As a prototypical example, we consider a one-dimensional packing of spherical particles (a so-called granular chain) that is subject to harmonic boundary excitation. The combination of the multi-modal nature of the system and the strong coupling between the particles due to the nonlinear Hertzian contact force leads to broad regions in frequency where different vibrational states are possible. In certain parametric regions, we demonstrate that the Nonlinear Schrodinger (NLS) equation predicts the corresponding modes fairly well. We propose that nonlinear multi-modal systems can be useful in vibration energy harvest- ing and discuss a prototypical framework for its realization. The electromechanical model we derive predicts accurately the conversion from mechanical to electrical energy observed in the experiments.