Wave propagation in fractal-inspired self-similar beam lattices

Abstract

We combine numerical analysis and experiments to investigate the effect of hierarchy on the propagation of elastic waves in triangular beam lattices. While the response of the triangular lattice is characterized by a locally resonant band gap, both Bragg-type and locally resonant gaps are found for the hierarchical lattice. Therefore, our results demonstrate that structural hierarchy can be exploited to introduce an additional type of band gaps, providing a robust strategy for the design of lattice-based metamaterials with hybrid band gap properties (i.e., possessing band gaps that arises from both Bragg scattering and localized resonance).