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Critical concepts from three different fields, elasticity, plasmonics and metamaterials, are brought together to design a metasurface at the geophysical scale, the resonant metawedge, to control seismic Rayleigh waves. Made of spatially graded vertical subwavelength resonators on an elastic substrate, the metawedge can either mode convert incident surface Rayleigh waves into bulk elastic shear waves or reflect the Rayleigh waves creating a “seismic rainbow” effect analogous to the optical rainbow for electromagnetic metasurfaces. Time-domain spectral element simulations demonstrate the broadband efficacy of the metawedge in mode conversion while an analytical model is developed to accurately describe and predict the seismic rainbow effect; allowing the metawedge to be designed without the need for extensive parametric studies and simulations. The efficiency of the resonant metawedge shows that large-scale mechanical metamaterials are feasible, will have application, and that the time is ripe for considering many optical devices in the seismic and geophysical context.

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The vertical flow of a fluid, under the influence of gravity, down the exterior of a rigid fibre is a flow accompanied by rich dynamics manifested via the formation of droplets, or beads, driven by a Rayleigh mechanism modulated by the presence of gravity. These droplets propagate down the fibre and undergo coalescence with preceding droplets. Different flow regimes are possible depending on system parameters such as the fibre radius, liquid flow rate and physical properties. We derive an evolution equation for the interface in the long-wavelength approximation, which captures the flow characteristics of the system; this model is similar to those previously used to investigate the dynamics of slender viscous threads in the absence of the fibre. Analytical and numerical solutions of the evolution equation yield information regarding the shape and propagation speeds of the droplets, which is in good agreement with available experimental data as well as those obtained as part of the present work. Connections with models already available in the literature are also established.

We explore the thesis that resonances in trees result in forests acting as locally resonant metamaterials for Rayleigh surface waves in the geophysics context. A geophysical experiment demonstrates that a Rayleigh wave, propagating in soft sedimentary soil at frequencies lower than 150 Hz, experiences strong attenuation, when interacting with a forest, over two separate large frequency bands. This experiment is interpreted using finite element simulations that demonstrate the observed attenuation is due to bandgaps when the trees are arranged at the sub-wavelength scale with respect to the incident Rayleigh wave. The repetitive bandgaps are generated by the coupling of the successive longitudinal resonances of trees with the vertical component of the Rayleigh wave. For wavelengths down to 5 meters, the resulting bandgaps are remarkably large and strongly attenuating when the acoustic impedance of the trees matches the impedance of the soil. Since longitudinal resonances of a vertical resonator are inversely proportional to its length, a man-made engineered array of resonators that attenuates Rayleigh waves at frequency ≤10 Hz could be designed starting from vertical pillars coupled to the ground with longitudinal resonance ≤10 Hz.

We consider the canonical problem of an array of rods, which act as resonators, placed on an elastic substrate; the substrate being either a thin elastic plate or an elastic half-space. In both cases the flexural plate, or Rayleigh surface, waves in the substrate interact with the resonators to create interesting effects such as effective band-gaps for surface waves or filters that transform surface waves into bulk waves; these effects have parallels in the field of optics where such sub-wavelength resonators create metamaterials in the bulk and metasurfaces at the free surfaces. Here we carefully analyse this canonical problem by extracting the dispersion relations analytically thereby examining the influence of both the flexural and compressional resonances on the propagating wave. For an array of resonators atop an elastic half-space we augment the analysis with numerical simulations. Amongst other effects, we demonstrate the striking effect of a dispersion curve which corresponds to a mode that transitions from Rayleigh wave-like to shear wave-like behaviour and the resultant change in the fields from surface to bulk waves

The regularity of earthquakes, their destructive power, and the nuisance of ground vibration in urban environments, all motivate designs of defence structures to lessen the impact of seismic and ground vibration waves on buildings. Low frequency waves, in the range 1-10 Hz for earthquakes and up to a few tens of Hz for vibrations generated by human activities, cause a large amount of damage, or inconvenience; depending on the geological conditions they can travel considerable distances and may match the resonant fundamental frequency of buildings. The ultimate aim of any seismic metamaterial, or any other seismic shield, is to protect over this entire range of frequencies; the long wavelengths involved, and low frequency, have meant this has been unachievable to date. Notably this is scalable and the effects also hold for smaller devices in ultrasonics. There are three approaches to obtaining shielding effects: bragg scattering, locally resonant sub-wavelength inclusions and zerofrequency stop-band media. The former two have been explored, but the latter has not and is examined here. Elastic flexural waves, applicable in the mechanical vibrations of thin elastic plates, can be designed to have a broad zero-frequency stop-band using a periodic array of very small clamped circles. Inspired by this experimental and theoretical observation, all be it in a situation far removed from seismic waves, we demonstrate that it is possible to achieve elastic surface (Rayleigh) wave reflectors at very large wavelengths in structured soils modelled as a fully elastic layer periodically clamped to bedrock. We identify zero frequency stop-bands that only exist in the limit of columns of concrete clamped at their base to the bedrock. In a realistic configuration of a sedimentary basin 15 m deep we observe a zero frequency stop-band covering a broad frequency range of 0-30 Hz. and horizontally polarized Love waves), pressure bulk waves and shear bulk waves; surface waves cause the majority of any damage and travel farthest, but bulk pressure, and shear, waves also cause damage, especially where wave trapping occurs in sedimentary basins (so-called seismic site effects). Designing a defence structure to prevent seismic waves from reaching buildings is therefore of substantial interest particularly for long waves with frequency in the range 1-10Hz as this corresponds to the resonant fundamental frequency of many manmade structures [3]. It is, of course, these long, low frequency, waves that are the hardest to develop protection measures against and it is an open problem to develop such devices.Since the late 1980s, in optics, researchers have taken advantage of technological improvements in structuring matter to achieve control over the flow of light [4,5]. The photonic crystals typically used are periodic man-made structures that inhibit emission due to band gaps [6, 7], i.e., ranges of frequency in which light cannot propagate through the structure. The existence of stop-bands is well predicted by Floquet-Bloch theory, which can be...

The breakup of viscous liquid threads covered with insoluble surfactant is investigated here; partial differential equations governing the spatio-temporal evolution of the interface and surfactant concentrations are derived in the long wavelength approximation. These one-dimensional equations are solved numerically for various values of initial surfactant concentration, surfactant activity and the Schmidt number (a measure of the importance of momentum, i.e., kinematic viscosity, to surfactant diffusion). The presence of surfactant at the air–liquid interface gives rise to surface tension gradients and, in turn, to Marangoni stresses, that drastically affect the transient dynamics leading to jet breakup and satellite formation. Specifically, the size of the satellite formed during breakup decreases with increasing initial surfactant concentration and surfactant activity. The usual self-similar breakup dynamics found in the vicinity of the pinchoff location for jets without surfactant [Eggers, Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 3458 (1993)], however, are preserved even in the presence of surfactant; this is confirmed via numerical solutions of the initial boundary value problem.