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 (c) 2010 Elsevier B V All rights reserved