Crossing of acoustic envelope solitary waves in homogeneous elastic rods: Experiments

In this letter we focused on the problem in which two shear envelope solitary waves traveling in 1-D homogeneous system (elastic PMMA rod of constant cross-section) and incoming in opposite directions, meet one another and head-on collide. The properties of incident acoustic waves after collision are investigated. Two cases are experimentally examined: incoming waves with close amplitudes and quite large difference in magnitude. No phase shift and no variation of polarization are experimentally detected after the collision.