Cloaking bending waves propagating in thin elastic plates

Mohamed Farhat (1) , Sébastien Guenneau (2) , Stefan Enoch (1) , A. B. Movchan (2)

1 FRESNEL - Institut FRESNEL
2 Department of Mathematical Sciences [Liverpool]

We introduce a cylindrical cloak to control the bending waves propagating in thin plates. This is achieved through radially dependent isotropic mass density and radially dependent and orthotropic flexural rigidity deduced from a coordinate transformation for the biharmonic propagation equation in the spirit of the paper of Pendry et al. [Science 312, 1780 (2006)].We analyze the response of the cloak surrounding a clamped obstacle in the presence of a cylindrical excitation. We note that whereas the studied bending waves are of different physical and mathematical nature, they are cloaked in many ways as their electromagnetic and acoustic counterparts; e.g., when the source lies inside the coating, it seems to radiate from a shifted location (mirage effect).

Domaines: Physique Générale [physics.gen-ph]

Mohamed Farhat, Sébastien Guenneau, Stefan Enoch, A. B. Movchan. Cloaking bending waves propagating in thin elastic plates. Physical Review B: Condensed Matter and Materials Physics (1998-2015), 2009, 79, pp.033102. ⟨hal-00426585⟩