Elastic wave control in reticulated plates using Schwarz primitive cells.

In this work, the Schwarz primitive unit cell is used as the building block of different types of metastructures for steering and focusing elastic vibrations. The emergence of a Bragg-type bandgap when constructing a two-dimensional plate from such unit cells is experimentally validated. It is demonstrated that increasing both mass and porosity of the Schwarz primitive leads to a decrease in the frequency of the out-of-plane propagating wave targeted in this study.

The quality of reporting in randomized controlled trials investigating exercise for individuals with whiplash-associated disorders; a systematic review.

Background: Whiplash-associated disorders are a common sequela of road traffic accidents. Exercise therapy is considered an effective intervention, and it is recommended for the management of such condition. However, the application of research findings to everyday clinical practice is dependent on sufficient details being reported.

Emerging topics in nanophononics and elastic, acoustic, and mechanical metamaterials: an overview.

This broad review summarizes recent advances and "hot" research topics in nanophononics and elastic, acoustic, and mechanical metamaterials based on results presented by the authors at the EUROMECH 610 Colloquium held on April 25-27, 2022 in Benicássim, Spain. The key goal of the colloquium was to highlight important developments in these areas, particularly new results that emerged during the last two years. This work thus presents a "snapshot" of the state-of-the-art of different nanophononics- and metamaterial-related topics rather than a historical view on these subjects, in contrast to a conventional review article.

Unraveling Negative Expectations and Nocebo-Related Effects in Musculoskeletal Pain.

This Perspective adapts the ViolEx Model, a framework validated in several clinical conditions, to better understand the role of expectations in the recovery and/or maintenance of musculoskeletal (MSK) pain. Here, particular attention is given to the condition in which dysfunctional expectations are maintained despite no longer being supported by confirmatory evidence (i.e.

Octet lattice-based plate for elastic wave control.

Motivated by the importance of lattice structures in multiple fields, we numerically investigate the propagation of flexural waves in a thin reticulated plate augmented with two classes of metastructures for wave mitigation and guiding, namely metabarriers and metalenses. The cellular architecture of this plate invokes the well-known octet topology, while the metadevices rely on novel customized octets either comprising spherical masses added to the midpoint of their struts or variable node thickness. We numerically determine the dispersion curves of a doubly-periodic array of octets, which produce a broad bandgap whose underlying physics is elucidated and leveraged as a design paradigm, allowing the construction of a metabarrier effective for inhibiting the transmission of waves.

Negative index metamaterial through multi-wave interactions: numerical proof of the concept of low-frequency Lamb-wave multiplexing.

We study numerically the potential of a multimodal elastic metamaterial to filter and guide Lamb waves in a plate. Using a sub-wavelength array of elongated beams attached to the plate, and combining the coupling effects of the longitudinal and flexural motion of these resonators, we create narrow transmission bands at the flexural resonances of the beams inside the wide frequency bandgap induced by their longitudinal resonance. The diameter of the beams becomes the tuning parameter for selection of the flexural leakage frequency, without affecting the main bandgap.

Design of a resonant Luneburg lens for surface acoustic waves.

In this work we employ additive manufacturing to print a circular array of micropillars on an aluminium slab turning its top surface into a graded index metasurface for surface acoustic waves (SAW). The graded metasurface reproduces a Luneburg lens capable of focusing plane SAWs to a point. The graded index profile is obtained by exploiting the dispersion properties of the metasurface arising from the well-known resonant coupling between the micropillars (0.

Tailored elastic surface to body wave Umklapp conversion.

Elastic waves guided along surfaces dominate applications in geophysics, ultrasonic inspection, mechanical vibration, and surface acoustic wave devices; precise manipulation of surface Rayleigh waves and their coupling with polarised body waves presents a challenge that offers to unlock the flexibility in wave transport required for efficient energy harvesting and vibration mitigation devices. We design elastic metasurfaces, consisting of a graded array of rod resonators attached to an elastic substrate that, together with critical insight from Umklapp scattering in phonon-electron systems, allow us to leverage the transfer of crystal momentum; we mode-convert Rayleigh surface waves into bulk waves that form tunable beams. Experiments, theory and simulation verify that these tailored Umklapp mechanisms play a key role in coupling surface Rayleigh waves to reversed bulk shear and compressional waves independently, thereby creating passive self-phased arrays allowing for tunable redirection and wave focusing within the bulk medium.

The Effects Induced by Spinal Manipulative Therapy on the Immune and Endocrine Systems.

: Spinal manipulations are interventions widely used by different healthcare professionals for the management of musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders. While previous theoretical principles focused predominantly on biomechanical accounts, recent models propose that the observed pain modulatory effects of this form of manual therapy may be the result of more complex mechanisms. It has been suggested that other phenomena like neurophysiological responses and the activation of the immune-endocrine system may explain variability in pain inhibition after the administration of spinal manipulative therapy (SMT).

Enhanced sensing and conversion of ultrasonic Rayleigh waves by elastic metasurfaces.

Recent years have heralded the introduction of metasurfaces that advantageously combine the vision of sub-wavelength wave manipulation, with the design, fabrication and size advantages associated with surface excitation. An important topic within metasurfaces is the tailored rainbow trapping and selective spatial frequency separation of electromagnetic and acoustic waves using graded metasurfaces. This frequency dependent trapping and spatial frequency segregation has implications for energy concentrators and associated energy harvesting, sensing and wave filtering techniques.

Resonant metalenses for flexural waves in plates.

The dispersion curves of a cluster of closely spaced rods supported by a thin plate are characterised by subwavelength bandgaps and slow group velocities induced by local resonance effects. A recent analytical study [Williams, Roux, Rupin, and Kuperman (2015). Phys.

A seismic metamaterial: The resonant metawedge.

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.

Transformation seismology: composite soil lenses for steering surface elastic Rayleigh waves.

Metamaterials are artificially structured media that exibit properties beyond those usually encountered in nature. Typically they are developed for electromagnetic waves at millimetric down to nanometric scales, or for acoustics, at centimeter scales. By applying ideas from transformation optics we can steer Rayleigh-surface waves that are solutions of the vector Navier equations of elastodynamics.

Forests as a natural seismic metamaterial: Rayleigh wave bandgaps induced by local resonances.

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.

Directional cloaking of flexural waves in a plate with a locally resonant metamaterial.

This paper deals with the numerical design of a directional invisibility cloak for backward scattered elastic waves propagating in a thin plate (A0 Lamb waves). The directional cloak is based on a set of resonating beams that are attached perpendicular to the plate and are arranged at a sub-wavelength scale in ten concentric rings. The exotic effective properties of this locally resonant metamaterial ensure coexistence of bandgaps and directional cloaking for certain beam configurations over a large frequency band.

Sub-wavelength energy trapping of elastic waves in a metamaterial.

Deep sub-wavelength focusing has been demonstrated for locally resonant metamaterials using electromagnetic and acoustic waves. The elastic equivalents of such objects are made of sub-wavelength resonating beams fixed to a two-dimensional plate, as presented here. Independent of a random or regular arrangement of the resonators, the metamaterial shows large bandgaps that are independent of the incident wave direction.

Green's function retrieval through cross-correlations in a two-dimensional complex reverberating medium.

Cross-correlations of ambient noise averaged at two receivers lead to the reconstruction of the two-point Green's function, provided that the wave-field is uniform azimuthally, and also temporally and spatially uncorrelated. This condition depends on the spatial distribution of the sources and the presence of heterogeneities that act as uncorrelated secondary sources. This study aims to evaluate the relative contributions of source distribution and medium complexity in the two-point cross-correlations by means of numerical simulations and laboratory experiments in a finite-size reverberant two-dimensional (2D) plate.