Demonstration of dispersive rarefaction shocks in hollow elliptical cylinder chains

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates dispersive rarefaction shocks in a 3D-printed chain of hollow elliptical cylinders, revealing unique wave behaviors that could improve impact mitigation without damping or plasticity.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental and numerical evidence of dispersive rarefaction shocks in a soft, 3D-printed chain, highlighting their unconventional propagation characteristics.

Findings

Higher impact velocity causes slower DRS propagation.

DRS exhibit backward-tilted wave fronts and modulated wave tails.

Unique wave features can be used for impact mitigation.

Abstract

We report an experimental and numerical demonstration of dispersive rarefaction shocks (DRS) in a 3D-printed soft chain of hollow elliptical cylinders. We find that, in contrast to conventional nonlinear waves, these DRS have their lower amplitude components travel faster, while the higher amplitude ones propagate slower. This results in the backward-tilted shape of the front of the wave (the rarefaction segment) and the breakage of wave tails into a modulated waveform (the dispersive shock segment). Examining the DRS under various impact conditions, we find the counter-intuitive feature that the higher striker velocity causes the slower propagation of the DRS. These unique features can be useful for mitigating impact controllably and efficiently without relying on material damping or plasticity effects.