Localized waves in elastic plates with perturbed honeycomb arrays of constraints

In this paper, we study wave propagation in elastic plates incorporating honeycomb arrays of rigid pins. In particular, we demonstrate that topologically non-trivial band-gaps are obtained by perturbing the honeycomb arrays of pins such that the ratio between the lattice spacing and the distance of pins is less than 3; conversely, a larger ratio would lead to the appearance of trivial stop-bands. For this purpose, we investigate band inversion of modes and calculate the valley Chern numbers associated with the dispersion surfaces near the band opening, since the present problem has analogies with the quantum valley Hall effect. In addition, we determine localized eigenmodes in strips, repeating periodically in one direction, that are subdivided into a topological and a trivial section. Finally, the outcomes of the dispersion analysis are corroborated by numerical simulations, where a time-harmonic point source is applied to a plate with finite arrays of rigid pins to create localized waves immune to backscattering. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Wave generation and transmission in multi-scale complex media and structured metamaterials (part 1)’.