Stress-wave energy management through material anisotropy

Stress-wave propagation in solids can be controlled through imposing a gradual change of anisotropy in the material elasticity tensor. In this study, a transversely isotropic material is incorporated with a smoothly varying axis of anisotropy. It is shown that if this axis initially coincides with the stress-wave vector, then the energy of the plane waves would closely follow this gradually changing material direction. A fiber-reinforced composite is used to induce the required anisotropy, and to experimentally demonstrate the management of stress-wave energy in a desired trajectory. The material has isotropic mass-density and is considered homogeneous at the scale of the considered wavelengths, even though microscopically it is highly heterogeneous.