Large Lamb wave band gap in phononic crystals thin plates

Abstract

We suggest that Lamb wave band gaps in one-dimensional phononic crystals can be substantially enlarged by using multiple heterostructures which consist of several pieces of phononic crystal with different ratios of the thickness to the lattice period. This is possible because each substructure shows a different band gap and the band structure of a Lamb wave is strongly affected by the ratio of the plate thickness to the lattice period. This effect has been demonstrated by using finite element simulations on two different one-dimensional systems.