Wave propagation in sandwich structures with multiresonators

A new sandwich beam with embedded multiresonators is presented. Two continuum Timoshenko beam models are adopted for modeling sandwich beams. Numerical results show that multiple resonators can lead to multiple resonant-type bandgaps with remarkable wave attenuation. The effective mass is found to become negative for frequencies in the bandgaps where the wave is greatly attenuated. With two identical resonators connected in parallel, only one single bandgap can be found. If two resonators with equal masses and springs are connected in series, the central frequency of the second bandgap is approximated twice of the central frequency of the first gap. For the beam with series-connected resonators, a simple two degrees-of-freedom system is proposed and used for predicting the initial frequencies of the bandgaps while for the beam with resonators in parallel, two separate single degree-of-freedom systems are introduced.