Broadband locally resonant beams containing multiple periodic arrays of attached resonators

The plane wave expansion method is extended to study the flexural wave propagation in locally resonant beams with multiple periodic arrays of attached spring-mass resonators. Complex Bloch wave vectors are calculated to quantify the wave attenuation performance of band gaps. It is shown that a locally resonant beam with multiple arrays of damped resonators can achieve much broader band gaps, at frequencies both below and around the Bragg condition, than a locally resonant beam with only a single array of resonators, although the two systems have the same total resonator masses. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.