We focus on solitary waves generated in arrays of lightly contacting spherical elastic granules by shock forces of steep rise and slow decay durations, and establish a priori: (i) whether the peak value of the resulting solitary wave would be greater, equal, or less than the peak value of the input shock force; (ii) the magnitude of the peak value of the solitary waves; (iii) the magnitude of the linear momentum in each solitary wave; (iv) the magnitude of the linear momentum added to the remaining granules, if the first granule is ejected; and (v) a quantitative estimate of the effect of the granules' radius, density and stiffness on force amplification/mitigation. We have supported the analytical results by direct numerical simulations.
Solitary waves (SWs) are generated in monoatomic (homogeneous) lightly contacting spherical granules by an applied input force of any time-variation and intensity. We consider finite duration shock loads and focus on the transition regime that leads to the formation of SWs. Based on geometrical and material properties of the granules and the properties of the input shock, we provide explicit analytic expressions to calculate the peak value of the compressive contact force at each contact point in the transition regime that precedes the formation of a primary solitary wave. We also provide expl…
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 investiga…
Propagation of ultrashort pulses at least a few tens of optical cycles in duration through a negative index material is investigated theoretically based on the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation with pseudo-quintic nonlinearity and self-steepening effect. Novel periodic waves of different forms are shown to exist in the system in the presence of higher-order effects. It is found that such periodic structures exhibit an interesting chirping property which depends on the light field intensity. The nonlinearity in pulse chirp is found to be caused by the presence of self-steepening effect…
One of the most interesting phenomena occuring in nonlinear media models is the existence of wave patterns, such as kinks, solitons, compactons, peakons and many others. There are known numerous nonlinear evolutionary PDEs, supporting soliton (multi-soliton) and compacton traveling wave (TW) solutions. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the models, with the exception of completely integrable ones, do not enable to analyze the properties of solitary waves interaction using only qualitative methods. Therefore it is instructive, when dealing with the non-integrable PDEs, to combine the qualitati…
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 de…
Our aim in the present work is to develop approximations for the collisional dynamics of traveling waves in the context of granular chains in the presence of precompression. To that effect, we aim to quantify approximations of the relevant Hertzian FPU-type lattice through both the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation and the Toda lattice. Using the availability in such settings of both 1-soliton and 2-soliton solutions in explicit analytical form, we initialize such coherent structures in the granular chain and observe the proximity of the resulting evolution to the underlying integrable (KdV or …
In the present study, we revisit the theme of wave propagation in locally resonant granular crystal systems, also referred to as Mass-in-Mass systems. We use 3 distinct approaches to identify relevant traveling waves. The first consists of a direct solution of the traveling wave problem. The second one consists of the solution of the Fourier tranformed variant of the problem. or, more precisely, of its convolution reformulation (upon an inverse Fourier transform) of the problem in real space. Finally, our third approach will restrict considerations to a finite domain, utilizing the notion of F…
In this work, we study the wave propagation in a recently proposed acoustic structure, the locally resonant granular crystal. This structure is composed of a one-dimensional granular crystal of hollow spherical particles in contact, containing linear resonators. The relevant model is presented and examined through a combination of analytical approximations (based on ODE and nonlinear map analysis) and of numerical results. The generic dynamics of the system involves a degradation of the well-known traveling pulse of the standard Hertzian chain of elastic beads. Nevertheless, the present system…
We study the propagation of an unusual type of periodic travelling waves in chains of identical beads interacting via Hertz's contact forces. Each bead periodically undergoes a compression phase followed by a free flight, due to special properties of Hertzian interactions (fully nonlinear under compression and vanishing in the absence of contact). We prove the existence of such waves close to binary oscillations, and numerically continue these solutions when their wavelength is increased. In the long wave limit, we observe their convergence towards shock profiles consisting of small compressio…
Propagation of primary pulse through an un-compressed granular chain subject to external on-site perturbation is studied. Analytical procedure predicting the evolution of the primary pulse is devised for the general form of the on-site perturbation applied on the chain. The validity of the analytical model is confirmed with several specific granular setups such as, chains mounted on the nonlinear elastic foundation, chains perturbed by the dissipative forces as well as randomly perturbed chains. Additional interesting finding made in the present study corresponds to the chains subject to a spe…
Recent work has explored binary waveguide arrays in the long-wavelength, near-continuum limit, here we examine the opposite limit, namely the vicinity of the so-called anti-continuum limit. We provide a systematic discussion of states involving one, two and three excited waveguides, and provide comparisons that illustrate how the stability of these states differ from the monoatomic limit of a single type of waveguide. We do so by developing a general theory which systematically tracks down the key eigenvalues of the linearized system. When we find the states to be unstable, we explore their dy…
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, computationa…
We consider the question of existence of "bell-shaped" (i.e. non-increasing for x>0 and non-decreasing for x<0) traveling waves for the strain variable of the generalized Hertzian model describing, in the special case of a p=3/2 exponent, the dynamics of a granular chain. The proof of existence of such waves is based on the English and Pego [Proceedings of the AMS 133, 1763 (2005)] formulation of the problem. More specifically, we construct an appropriate energy functional, for which we show that the constrained minimization problem over bell-shaped entries has a solution. We also provide an a…
We investigate the propagation and scattering of highly nonlinear waves in disordered granular chains composed of diatomic (two-mass) units of spheres that interact via Hertzian contact. Using ideas from statistical mechanics, we consider each diatomic unit to be a "spin", so that a granular chain can be viewed as a spin chain composed of units that are each oriented in one of two possible ways. Experiments and numerical simulations both reveal the existence of two different mechanisms of wave propagation: In low-disorder chains, we observe the propagation of a solitary pulse with exponentiall…
