Wave propagation through an inhomogeneous slab sandwiched by the piezoelectric and the piezomagnetic half spaces

•The wave propagation through a sandwiched graded slab is studied.•The magnetic-electric-elastic graded interlayer and five kinds of gradient profiles are considered.•The piece-wise homogenization of the graded interlayer is avoided and the direct integral approach is used instead.•The energy flux ratios are used instead of the amplitude ratios and the energy conservation is checked.

Wave propagation through a gradient slab sandwiched by the piezoelectric and the piezomagnetic half spaces are studied in this paper. First, the secular equations in the transverse isotropic piezoelectric/piezomagnetic half spaces are derived from the general dynamic equation. Then, the state vectors at piezoelectric and piezomagnetic half spaces are related to the amplitudes of various possible waves. The state transfer equation of the functionally graded slab is derived from the equations of motion by the reduction of order, and the transfer matrix of the functionally gradient slab is obtained by solving the state transfer equation with the spatial-varying coefficient. Finally, the continuous interface conditions are used to lead to the resultant algebraic equations. The algebraic equations are solved to obtain the amplitude ratios of various waves which are further used to obtain the energy reflection and transmission coefficients of various waves. The numerical results are shown graphically and are validated by the energy conservation law. Based on the numerical results on the fives of gradient profiles, the influences of the graded slab on the wave propagation are discussed. It is found that the reflection and transmission coefficients are obviously dependent upon the gradient profile. The various surface waves are more sensitive to the gradient profile than the bulk waves.