Plane Wave-Perturbative Method for Evaluating the Effective Speed of Sound in 1D Phononic Crystals

Abstract

A method for calculating the effective sound velocities for a 1D phononic crystal is presented; it is valid when the lattice constant is much smaller than the acoustic wave length; therefore, the periodic medium could be regarded as a homogeneous one. The method is based on the expansion of the displacements field into plane waves, satisfying the Bloch theorem. The expansion allows us to obtain a wave equation for the amplitude of the macroscopic displacements field. From the form of this equation we identify the effective parameters, namely, the effective sound velocities for the transverse and longitudinal macroscopic displacements in the homogenized 1D phononic crystal. As a result, the explicit expressions for the effective sound velocities in terms of the parameters of isotropic inclusions in the unit cell are obtained: mass density and elastic moduli. These expressions are used for studying the dependence of the effective, transverse and longitudinal, sound velocities for a binary 1D phononic crystal upon the inclusion filling fraction. A particular case is presented for 1D phononic crystals composed of W-Al and Polyethylene-Si, extending for a case solid-fluid.