Tunable mechanical diode of nonlinear elastic metamaterials induced by imperfect interface.

In this investigation, the non-reciprocal transmission in a nonlinear elastic metamaterial with imperfect interfaces is studied. Based on the Bloch theorem and stiffness matrix method, the band gaps and transmission coefficients with imperfect interfaces are obtained for the fundamental and double frequency cases. The interfacial influences on the transmission behaviour are discussed for both the nonlinear phononic crystal and elastic metamaterial. Numerical results for the imperfect interface structure are compared with those for the perfect one. Furthermore, experiments are performed to support the theoretical analysis. The present research is expected to be helpful to design tunable devices with the non-reciprocal transmission and diode behaviour of the elastic metamaterial.