Phononic layered composites for stress-wave attenuation

The aim is to design a layered metamaterial with high attenuation coefficient and high in-plane stiffness-to-density ratio using homogenization to calculate and optimize the dynamic effective stiffness and mass density of layered periodic composites (phononic layers) over a broad frequency band. This is achieved by: (1) minimizing the frequency range of the first pass band, (2) maximizing the frequency range of the stop band, and (3) creating local resonance over the second pass band. To verify the theoretical calculation, laboratory samples were fabricated and their attenuation coefficient were measured and compared with the theoretical results. It is observed that over 4-20 kHz frequency range the attenuation per unit length in the optimally designed composite can exceed 500 dB/m; which increases with increasing frequency. A dynamic Ashby chart, depicting attenuation coefficient vs. in-plane stiffness-to-density ratio, is presented for various engineering materials and is compared with the fabricated metamaterial to show the significance of our design. This method can be used in variety of applications for stress wave management, e.g., in addition to match the impedance of the resulting composite to that of its surrounding medium to minimize (or essentially eliminate) stress wave reflection.