Construction and Building Materials 50 (2014) 257–265

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Vibration attenuation properties of periodic rubber concrete panels

Zhibao Cheng, Zhifei Shi ⇑
School of Civil Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China

h i g h l i g h t s

 Periodic rubber concrete panels can produce attenuation zones below 20 Hz.
 Directional attenuation zones can be designed in Bragg-scattering panels.
 Vibration can be reduced significantly by using only three periodic units.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper, attenuation zones of two-dimensional periodic rubber concrete panels are investigated.
Received 29 April 2013 Both the Bragg-scattering periodic panels and the Local-resonant periodic panels are studied. It is found
Received in revised form 19 September 2013 that complete attenuation zones in the low frequency region can be obtained in the considered panels by
Accepted 24 September 2013
proper design. Further, parameter studies show that non-symmetric periodic panels with directional
Available online 17 October 2013
attenuation zones are much suitable for engineering applications. Numerical simulation shows that
vibration attenuation is possible if the frequency of an excitation falls within the attenuation zones.
Keywords:
The present investigation also shows that vibration can be reduced significantly by using a periodic struc-
Periodic structure
Directional attenuation zones
ture with only three units. The results of the study provide valuable information for a better understand-
Vibration attenuation ing of dynamic properties of periodic rubber concrete panels.
Rubber concrete Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Concrete has served as a construction material in civil engineer-
ing field for more than two millennia. Numerous efforts have been
devoted to improve the performance of concrete since the ancient
roman period. With the needs of sustainable development for hu-
man being and some special requirements for construction materi-
als, rubberized concrete has become an emerging research topic in
recent years and a lot of achievements have been obtained. Zheng
 nas et al. [3,4] experimentally studied the
et al. [1,2] and Skripkiu
damping ratio, dynamic and static modulus, strength and brittle-
ness index of rubberized concrete. It was found that the crushed
rubberized concrete had better damping properties but lower dy-
namic and static modulus of elasticity than ground rubberized con-
crete [1,2], and the compressive and flexural strength of concrete
decrease with increasing tires rubber waste additives [3,4]. Suk-
ontasukkul and Chaikaew investigated the properties such as ther-
mal conductivity, strength, sound absorption of concrete mixed
with crumb rubber at different frequency and noise reduction
[5,6], results indicated that crumb rubber concrete was not only
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 51688367.
E-mail addresses: zfshi178@bjtu.edu.cn.or, zfshi178@sohu.com (Z. Shi).
lighter but had higher sound absorption and lower heat transfer
properties than the conventional concrete. Ling experimentally
investigated the influence of rubber content within the range of
5–50% on the density and compressive strength and proposed
the linear and logarithm equations to predict these two parameters
of rubberized concrete blocks [7]. In addition, Ling also studied the
effects of compaction method on the properties of concrete paving
blocks [8].
Different from above works, this study does not focus on the
use of waste tires, but on the use of the periodic theory to rubber
concrete composites. Investigations in the field of solid state
physics show that the phononic crystal (one kind of periodic
material or periodic structure) can produce bands of frequency
gaps. If the excitation frequencies fall within the frequency gaps,
the waves cannot propagate in, or through, the material. There-
fore, periodic materials may be designed with one or more band
of frequency gaps in order to block wave propagation or reduce
vibration, which has many potential applications, such as reduc-
ing engine noise, suppressing vibrations in civil structures, isolat-
ing seismic vibrations, and reducing traffic noise [9–11]. In the
following discussion, the term ‘‘band of frequency gap(s)’’ will
be replaced by the term ‘‘attenuation zone(s)’’, and the attention
is going to focus on the use of periodic theory to rubber concrete
panels.

0950-0618/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2013.09.060
258 Z. Cheng, Z. Shi / Construction and Building Materials 50 (2014) 257–265

In fact, the property of attenuation zone existing in periodic Table 1

materials has been used in civil engineering field. By using the idea Material component properties [16].

of the local resonant unit, Li and Chen developed a new concrete Material Young modulus E (Pa) Poisson ratio m Density q (kg/m3)
[12], incorporated the coated lead balls into a short fiber reinforced Rubber 1.37  10 5
0.463 1300
cementitious composite. Their experimental results showed that Concrete 3.00  1010 0.2 2500
the new concrete has much better sound proofing capability and
has good potential in engineering applications. Based on vibration
theory, Zhang and Li developed a new approach to calculate the
2.1. Governing equations
effective mass density for a composite modeled as consisting of a
hard spherical core, with a soft shell layer surrounding the core
Under the assumption of a continuous, isotropic, perfectly elas-
and embedded in a stiff host medium [13]. By the use of finite-dif-
tic and small deformation as well as without consideration of
ference schemes, Redondo et al. [14,15] evaluated the potential of
material damping, the governing equation for the in-plane waves
sonic crystals as sound diffusers, which showed that the perfor-
propagating in a two-dimensional inhomogeneous solid can be gi-
mance of sonic crystals as sound diffusers could be improved.
ven as:
Guided by the achievements in the field of solid-state physics 8 h i h  i
and the concept of band of frequency gaps, Shi and his co-workers > 2
< qðrÞ @@t2u ¼ @x
@
C 11 ðrÞ @u þ C 12 ðrÞ @@yv þ @y @
C 44 ðrÞ @u þ @@xv
@x @y
[16–19] proposed a new and innovative method for seismic base h  i h i: ð1Þ
isolation. Their works demonstrated that periodic foundations
>
: qðrÞ @ 2 2v ¼ @x
@
C 44 ðrÞ @u þ @@xv þ @y @
C 21 ðrÞ @u þ C 22 ðrÞ @@yv
@t @y @x
have a great potential in future applications for seismic isolation.
Though the periodic theory has been established in the solid- where (u, v) is the displacement vector, r = {x, y} the coordinate vec-
state-physics for many decades, it has been introduced into civil tor, C11, C12, C21, C22, C44 are the elastic parameters, q the density
engineering field only recently. Lots of attentions have been paid and t the time parameter.
to search possible application of periodic structures in civil engi- For simplicity, concrete and rubber can be taken as isotropic
neering structure at the present. Meanwhile some problems have material, whose elastic parameters are:
begun to emerge. Specially, the fundamental frequencies of most 2 Eð1v Þ vE 3
ð1þv Þð12v Þ ð1þv Þð12v Þ
0
engineering structures and the frequencies of the main compo- 6 7
Eð1v Þ
nents of external excisions in civil engineering are usually below C¼6 vE
4 ð1þv Þð12v Þ ð1þv Þð12v Þ
0 7
5 ð2Þ
50 Hz. For engineering application, periodic panels of small size 0 0 E
2ð1þv Þ
are much applicable. Therefore, periodic rubber-concrete panels
with limited size are always hoped to have low-frequency attenu- where E and v are the Young modulus and the Poisson ratios,
ation zones. To meet these requirements, this paper will give a respectively.
comprehensive study on the attenuation zones of two-directional
periodic rubber concrete panels. Attenuation zones of both the 2.2. Periodic boundary conditions
Bragg-scattering periodic panels and the Local-resonant periodic
panels are studied comparatively. The influences of geometrical According to the periodic theory, solutions of Eq. (1) can be ex-
parameters on the complete attenuation zone are particularly dis- pressed as:
cussed. In addition, the directional attenuation zones for periodic
panels with non-symmetric unit cells are investigated. Finally, uðr; tÞ ¼ eiðKrxtÞ uK ðrÞ ð3Þ
the dynamic responses of periodic structures with finite units to in which, K denotes the wave vector in the reciprocal space, x the
external excitations are investigated. angular frequency, and uK(r) the wave amplitude, which is a peri-
odic function:
2. Basic theory uK ðrÞ ¼ uK ðr þ AÞ ð4Þ
in which A is a constant vector.
As illustrated in Fig. 1, a periodic panel containing inner scatters
Due to periodicity, the dispersion relationships of an infinite
of any shape is considered. For two-component periodic panels, the
periodic structure can be investigated by using a typical periodic
inner scatters are made of concrete and the matrix is rubber; for
unit with periodic boundary conditions. Substituting Eq. (4) into
three-component periodic structure, both the matrix and the core
Eq. (3), periodic boundary conditions can be obtained as follow
are made of concrete and the coating is rubber. Material parame-
and shown in Fig. 2:
ters are given in Table 1. The periodic constant is assumed to be
A. In this section, the basic theory for waves propagating in infinite
periodic panels is presented.

(a) periodic panel (b) unit cell

Fig. 1. Illustration of a periodic panel and its unit cell.
Fig. 2. Periodic boundary conditions for two-dimensional periodic panels.
 Z. Cheng, Z. Shi / Construction and Building Materials 50 (2014) 257–265
ky
Y 0.6
M
L 0.5
kx
X 0.4
Fig. 3. The first Brillouin zone of the square unit cell containing an inner scatter of
any shape.
uðr þ A; tÞ ¼ eiKA uðr; tÞ
2.3. Dispersion relationship and attenuation zones
As using the periodic boundary conditions, the wave equations
will be transferred into an eigen-value equation, which is the so-
called dispersion equation:
ðXðKÞ  x2 MÞU ¼ 0
where X and M are the stiffness matrix and mass matrix of the unit
cell, respectively; U is the displacement matrix of the unit cell.
The finite element method (COMSOL3.4) is applied to solve the
eigen-value problem, given that the method is suitable for all kinds
of geometry parameters. And, the mesh size is chosen according to
the shortest wavelength in the calculations [16]. The stiffness ma-
trix X is a function of wave vector K. For a given wave vector K, the
eigen-frequencies of the system can be found by a modal analysis.
Varying the wave vector along the boundary of the first Brillouin
zone (C-X-M-Y-C), the boundary of the quadrilateral shown in
Fig. 3, the dispersion curves can be obtained.
The relationship between the eigen-frequency and the wave
vector is the so-called dispersion relationship. In detail, the vertical
coordinate of the dispersion relationship can be divided into the
pass bands and stop bands. In pass bands, there are eigen-frequen-
cies corresponding to wave vectors, and waves with frequencies
in these regions can pass through periodic structures. In stop bands
or attenuation zones, there is no eigen-frequency for any wave vec-
tor, and waves with frequencies in these regions cannot propagate
in the periodic structures.
3. Attenuation zones of periodic panels
First of all, to verify the method used in the present paper, the
dispersion structure of the two-component periodic structure con-
sidered by Zhang et al. [20] is resolved. Fig. 4 shows the results ob-
tained by the present numerical method and by the PWE method
[20] and good agreement is found.
3.1. Bragg-scattering periodic panels
In this part, periodic panels with concrete cylinders inserted
into the rubber matrix are considered. Physically speaking, due
to constructive interference of incident and reflected waves, atten-
uation zones of this type of periodic panels are related to the Bragg
resonance [21]. Therefore, this type of periodic panels can be
named as Bragg-scattering periodic panels.
First, the unit cell with a circle scatter inserted into the center of
the square matrix as shown in Fig. 5a is considered. The radius of
the scatter is R. Taking the periodic parameter A = 1.0 m, the
259
0.7
Present Method PWE
Normalized Frequency
0.3
0.2
0.1
ð5Þ
0
X M
Wave Vector
Fig. 4. Dispersion relationships obtained by the present method and the PWE
method.
dispersion curves of the infinite periodic panel with R = 0.4 m are
ð6Þ shown in Fig. 5b. One can see that no wave vector can be found
in the region (10.03, 11.01) Hz, between the third and the fourth
dispersion curves. This means that waves with frequencies in this
region cannot propagate in the structure, regardless in which
direction the waves come from. Fig. 6a shows the attenuation zone
2
changes with the filling ratio (f ¼ pAR2 ) when taking A = 1.0 m. It is
found that both the lower bound frequency (LBF) and upper bound
frequency (UBF) of the attenuation zone increase with the increase
of the filling ratio. Taking the filling ratio as a constant f = 0.50,
Fig. 6b shows the attenuation zone changes with the periodic
parameter A. It is clear that both the LBF and the UBF of the atten-
uation zone decrease sharply with the increase of the periodic
parameter.
Second, influence of the geometrical shape of the inner scatters
on the attenuation zone is analyzed. It is supposed that the cross
section of the inner scatters is a regular polygon with N sides. Peri-
odic panels with different unit cells are listed in Table 2. Fig. 7
shows the bound frequencies of the attenuation zone versus the
number of the regular polygon as taking the periodic parameter
A = 1.0 m and f = 0.55. It is found that bound frequencies of the
attenuation zone change slightly as varying the shape of the inner
scatters. For cases with N being an odd number (N = 5 and 7), the
attenuation zone of periodic panels is wider than those of cases
with N being an even number (N = 4, 6, 8).
Attenuation zone shown in Fig. 5b is a frequency gap along the
boundary of the first Brillouin zone, which means that waves or
vibrations with frequencies in this region cannot propagate in
the periodic panels in all directions (0°, 360°). This type of attenu-
ation zone can be named as complete attenuation zone. However, it
is also very important to search the frequency attenuation zone in
a certain direction, which is the so-called directional attenuation
zone. In this case, a non-symmetric unit cell as shown in Fig. 8a will
be considered. The rectangle inner scatter is inserted into the cen-
ter of the rectangle matrix. The parameter d is taken as 0.1 m.
Fig. 8b shows the dispersion curves for the periodic panel with
H = 0.3 m and L = 0.8 m. Different from the dispersion curves of
periodic panels with symmetric unit cell like Fig. 5b, dispersion
curves for the non-symmetric unit cell are not symmetric about
the wave vector M. It seems that this kind of periodic materials
does not have any attenuation zone and vibrations with any fre-
quency can propagate in the periodic panel. However, it is found
that there is not dispersion curves between 12.07 Hz and
260 Z. Cheng, Z. Shi / Construction and Building Materials 50 (2014) 257–265

20

15

Frequency (Hz)
10
R

A
5

0
Γ X M Y Γ
A
Wave Vector

(a) the periodic unit cell (b) the case with R=0.4m and A=1.0m
Fig. 5. Dispersion relationship for a Bragg-scattering periodic panel with concrete cylinder inserted into the rubber matrix.

18
25
LBF
UBF LBF
15 20 UBF
Frequency (Hz)

Frequency (Hz)

15
12
10
9
5

6 0
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
Filling ratio ( f ) Periodic parameter A(m)
(a) LBF and UBF versus the f as A=1.0m (b) LBF and UBF versus the A as f=0.50
Fig. 6. Influences of the geometrical parameters on the attenuation zone of Bragg-scattering periodic panels.

Table 2
Periodic panels with different inner scatter.

Bragg-scattering periodic panels

Local-resonant periodic panels

15.12 Hz along C ? X. This means that vibration with frequencies
in this region cannot propagate in this periodic panel along C ? X
direction, the so-called directional attenuation zone. Further, Fig. 9
presents the relationship between the height of the inner scatter
and the directional attenuation zone. It is found that the bound fre-
quencies of the directional attenuation zone are almost constants
even the height of the inner scatter is reduced more than a half.
Compared to the periodic panels with symmetric unit cell, periodic
panels with non-symmetric unit cells are much more suitable for
engineering structure to isolate the waves/vibrations propagating
in certain direction.
3.2. Local-resonant periodic panels
Different from the Bragg-scattering periodic materials, the spec-
tral gap of the three-components periodic panels arises from local
vibration resonances of the coated core and has nothing to do with
Bragg scattering [22]. Therefore, it can be termed as Local-resonant
periodic panels.
As shown in Fig. 10a, a periodic unit cell with the coated cylin-
der inserted into the center of the square matrix is considered first.
Fig. 10b presents the dispersion relationship for the case with
R = 0.35 m, d = 0.1 m and A = 1.0 m. An attenuation zone is opened
between 7.22 Hz and 10.01 Hz. It is found that the lower bound
frequency 7.22 Hz of the attenuation zone corresponds to the sec-
ond characteristic frequency of the inner oscillator with fixed
boundaries; while the upper bound frequency 10.16 Hz corre-
sponds to the fifth characteristic frequency of the inner oscillator
with free boundaries. This result indicates that the attenuation
zone of Local-resonant periodic panels is intensively related to
the inner oscillators.
Influences of the geometrical parameters on the attenuation
zone are investigated. Here, the filling ratio parameter
f0 = p(R + d)2/A2 is introduced. Taking the periodic constant A and
 Z. Cheng, Z. Shi / Construction and Building Materials 50 (2014) 257–265 261

13 18
LBF
LBF
UBF
UBF 16

Frequency (Hz)
12 14
Frequency (Hz)

12

11
10

8
0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
10 H (m)
4 5 6 7 8
Fig. 9. Influences of the height of the inner scatter (H) on the directional
N attenuation zone.

Fig. 7. The bound frequencies of the attenuation zone of Bragg-scattering periodic

panels versus the number of the regular polygon as taking A = 1.0 m and f = 0.55.
the thickness of the rubber coating d as 1.0 m and 0.1 m respec-
tively, the bound frequencies of the attenuation zone changing
with the filling ratio are shown in Fig. 11a. With the increase of
the filling ratio, the LBF decreases monotonously; however, the
UBF decreases at first, and then increases after f0 = 0.5. Taking the
filling ratio f0 = 0.5, influences of the thickness of the rubber coating
on the attenuation zone are presented in Fig. 11b. It is found that
both the LBF and UBF decrease with the increase of the thickness
of the rubber coating.
Then, influences of the geometrical shape of the inner scatter on
the attenuation zone are studied by replacing the regular polygon,
as listed in Table 2. Fig. 12 shows the bound frequencies for differ-
ent cases as taking A = 1.0 m and f0 = 0.50. It is found that the bound
frequencies of the attenuation zone are almost constants when
N > 5.
As mentioned above, Bragg-scattering periodic panels with
directional frequency attenuation zones are much suitable for
engineering applications. It should be pointed out that directional
frequency attenuation zones of Bragg-scattering periodic panels
are the frequency region in which all kinds of waves/vibrations
are forbidden. However, for Local-resonant periodic panels, it can
be seen that the dispersion curves are not sensitive to the wave
vector. It is difficult to obtain directional attenuation zones for all
kinds of waves. Recently, based on the model analytical method,
the dispersion curves of a periodic structure with inner oscillators
are studied. It is found that it is possible to find directional atten-
uation zones for a certain kind of wave/vibrations [23]. Here, a de-
tailed investigation of the directional frequency attenuation zone
for different kinds of waves is presented and influences of the geo-
metrical parameter on the directional attenuation zone are
considered.
To investigate the directional attenuation zone of Local-reso-
nant periodic panels, a unit cell with coated rectangle concrete cyl-
inder inserted into the rectangle matrix is considered, as shown in
Fig. 13a. Fig. 13b shows the dispersion curves for the case with
symmetric unit cell as taking ay = 0.7 m, by = 0.3 m, bx = 0.6 m and
d = 0.1 m. It is found that the dispersion curves of waves with inner
oscillators vibrating in the y direction are different with those with
inner oscillators vibrating in the x direction. Directional attenua-
tion zones for waves with inner oscillators vibrating in the x and
y directions are obtained in the regions (14.74, 18.84) Hz and
(19.81, 24.71) Hz, respectively. Additionally, it is found that disper-
sion curves for waves with inner oscillators vibrating rotationally
do not change with the wave vector, which means that these
modes are isolated modes. Furthermore, as shown in Fig. 14, influ-
ences of the height of the unit cell on these directional attenuation
zones are investigated as taking d = 0.1 m and bx = 0.6 m. With the
decrease of the height ay, the bound frequencies of the directional
attenuation zone for waves with inner oscillators vibrating in the y
direction are increased and the width of the directional attenuation

30

1.0 m
20
Frequency (Hz)

L
d

10
H
d

0
Γ X M Y Γ
(a) the periodic unit cell Wave Vector
(b) the case with H=0.3m and L=0.8m
Fig. 8. Dispersion curves of the Bragg-scattering periodic panels with rectangle inner scatters inserted into the rectangle matrix.
262 Z. Cheng, Z. Shi / Construction and Building Materials 50 (2014) 257–265

30

Frequency(Hz)
20

A
10
d

0
A M Y Γ X M
Wave Vector
(a) the periodic unit cell (b) the case with A=1.0m, R=0.35m and d=0.1m
Fig. 10. Dispersion curves of the Local-resonant periodic panels with coated concrete cylinder inserted into the concrete matrix.

24
40 LBF
LBF UBF
UBF
21
Frequency (Hz)
Frequency (Hz)

30
18

20
15

12 10
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20
Filling ratio ( f ') d (m)
(a) the bound frequencies versus f’ as (b) the bound frequencies versus d as
A=1.0m and d=0.1m f’=0.5 and A=1.0m
Fig. 11. Influences of the geometrical parameters on the attenuation zone of Local-resonant periodic panels.

4. Periodic panels with finite units

24
LBF In the above section, both the complete attenuation zones and
UBF the directional attenuation zones of infinite periodic panels are
21 studied. However, all the panels used in practical engineering are
finite. For engineering applications, it is necessary to investigate
the dynamic properties of two-dimensional periodic panels with fi-
Frequency (Hz)

18 nite units.

15 4.1. Periodic panels with complete attenuation zones and finite

number of unit cells

12 Numerical simulations are conducted to study the dynamic

properties of periodic panels with complete attenuation zones
and finite number of unit cells. As shown in Fig. 15, both Bragg-
9 scattering panel and Local-resonant panel with symmetric units
4 5 6 7 8 are considered, in which unit cells with square scatters inserted
N into the center of the square matrix are considered. The size of
the unit cell is A = 1.0 m. For Bragg-scattering periodic panel, the
Fig. 12. The bound frequencies of the attenuation zone of Local-resonant periodic
side length of the square scatters is 0.8 m and a complete attenua-
panels versus the number of the regular polygon as taking A = 1.0 m and f0 = 0.50.
tion zone is between 12.35 Hz and 15.43 Hz; for Local-resonant
periodic panel, the square scatters are wrapped by rubber coating.
zone is reduced; for the directional attenuation zone for waves The thickness of rubber coating is 0.1 m and the side length of the
with inner oscillators vibrating in the x direction, the lower bound inner core is 0.7 m; a complete attenuation zone is found between
frequency is lowered and the width is decreased. 14.68 Hz and 20.56 Hz.
 Z. Cheng, Z. Shi / Construction and Building Materials 50 (2014) 257–265 263

40 Rotational vibration
Vibration in the x direction
Vibration in the y direction

30

Frequency (Hz)
ax=1.0 m
bx (19.81, 24.71)
20 (14.74, 18.84)

d
by 10
ay

0
M Y Γ X M
(a) the periodic unit cell
Wave Vector
(b) the case with ay=1.0m,
bx=by=0.6m and d=0.1m
Fig. 13. Dispersion curves of the Local-resonant periodic panels with coated rectangle concrete cylinder inserted into the rectangle concrete matrix.

the two periodic panels. In detail, a harmonic displacement with

unit amplitude but different frequencies is added to every node
35 LBF (vibration in x direction) in the x direction on the left side of the panel. And, fixed boundary
UBF (vibration in x dreiciton) conditions are added on nodes on the left sides of the periodic pan-
LBF (vibraiton in y direction) els. The steady-state responses for every node are calculated by
30
UBF (vibration in y direction) using the commercial software ANSYS 10.0. The frequency re-
sponse function (FRF) is defined as:
Frequency (Hz)

25 FRF ¼ 20 lg di ð7Þ

where di is the amplitude of dynamic response in the x direction of

20 the nodes on the right side of the panel.
Fig. 16 shows the displacement FRFs on the right side of the two
panels changing with the exciting frequency. For Bragg-scattering
15 periodic panels, large attenuation can be found in the complete
attenuation zone. Around the bound frequencies of the attenuation
zones, the FRF curves become steeper with the increase of the
10 number of periodic units. Comparatively, for the Local-resonant
panels, displacement FRF curves have a very asymmetrical profile,
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
ay (m)
the so-call Fano profile [24]. Sharp attenuation is obtained in a
small region near the lower bound frequency of the attenuation
Fig. 14. Influences of the height of the unit cell (ay) on the directional attenuation zone. For both cases, attenuation ability of the finite periodic panel
zone with d = 0.1 m and bx = 0.6 m. becomes stronger with the increase of the number of unit cells.
Taking the periodic constant and the number of unit cells as
A = 1.0 m and N = 8, respectively, Fig. 17 shows the steady state dis-
Harmonic analysis is conducted to investigate the frequency re- placement response of the Local-resonant periodic panels along
sponse function of the two finite periodic panels. Due to symmetry the x direction. Amplitude of the displacement response is normal-
of the unit cell, excitations are only inputted in the x direction of ized by the amplitude of the input motion. It is found that the

y
y

o x o x
(a) Bragg-scattering periodic panel (b) Local-resonant periodic panel
Fig. 15. Illustration of periodic panels with symmetric but finite number of unit cells.
264 Z. Cheng, Z. Shi / Construction and Building Materials 50 (2014) 257–265

40 N=4
10
N=6
20 N=8

0
0

FRF(dB)
FRF(dB)
-20 -10

-40 N=4
N=6 -20
N=8
-60

-80 -30
10 12 14 16 18 14 16 18 20 22 24
Frequency(Hz) Frequency(Hz)

(a) Bragg-scattering periodic panels (b) Local-resonant periodic panels

Fig. 16. Displacement FRFs of the finite periodic panels with symmetric unit cells.

2.0 4.2. Periodic panels with directional attenuation zones and finite
f =13.2Hz (out of attenuation zone) number of unit cells
f =14.8Hz (in attenuation zone)
In this part, the efficiency of directional attenuation zones for
both the Bragg-scattering periodic panels and Local-resonant peri-
1.5
odic panels are verified. Schematics of two non-symmetric periodic
Normalized amplitude

1.0
0.5
0.0
0 1 2 3 4 5
Number of unit cell
Fig. 17. Normalized steady-state displacement responses of the Local-resonant
periodic panels under displacement excitations with different frequencies.
exciting motion can pass through the panels when the exciting
frequency is in the pass band. However, the exciting motion is
located in the first several units and cannot pass through the
panels when the exciting frequency is in the attenuation zones.
When the exciting frequency falls within the attenuation zones,
the output amplitude is reduced obviously after passing through
3–5 periodic units, which is of special significant for practical
applications.
panels are shown in Fig. 18. For both cases, the size of the non-
symmetric unit cell is chosen as 1.0 m  0.5 m.
For the Bragg-scattering periodic panel, the side lengths of the
inner scatter in the x and the y directions arechosen as 0.8 m and
0.3 m, respectively. The directional frequency attenuation zone in
the C ? X direction is found between 12.07 Hz and 15.12 Hz.
Fig. 19a shows the displacement FRFs on the right side of the peri-
odic panel. In the directional attenuation zone, the displacement
FRFs for both the P wave and the shear wave are much lower than
0, which means that waves/vibrations in this directional cannot
propagate freely in the periodic panel. For the Local-resonant peri-
odic panels, the side lengths of the core cylinder in the longitudinal
and the vertical directions are chosen to be 0.7 m and 0.3 m,
6 7 8
respectively. The thickness of the coating rubber in the x and y
directions are 0.1 m and 0.05 m, respectively. The directional fre-
quency attenuation zone in the x direction is found between
14.93 Hz and 19.46 Hz; the directional frequency attenuation zone
in the y direction is found between 23.26 Hz and 27.86 Hz. The dis-
placement FRFs for P waves in the C ? X direction and C ? Y
direction are plotted in Fig. 19b. It is obvious that the attenuation
properties of the directional attenuation zones are verified.
5. Conclusions
This paper presents an investigation on the attenuation zones
existing in periodic rubber concrete panels. Influences of the geo-
metrical parameters on the attenuation zones of the panels with

y y

o x o x
(a) Bragg-scattering periodic panel (b) Local-resonant periodic panel
Fig. 18. Illustration of periodic panels with finite non-symmetric unit cells.
 Z. Cheng, Z. Shi / Construction and Building Materials 50 (2014) 257–265
20
0
FRF (dB)
-20
-40
-60
P wave in Γ -X direction
Shear wave in Γ -X direction
-80
12 13 14 15
Frequency (Hz)
(a) Bragg-scattering periodic panel
Fig. 19. Displacement FRFs for the directional attenuation zones of periodic panels with finite non-symmetric unit cells.
both the Bragg-scattering case and the Local-resonant case are dis-
cussed. Several conclusions can be drawn as follows:
1. For both the Bragg-scattering and the Local-resonant panels,
composited of concrete and rubber, attenuation zones can
be found in the low frequency region (below 20 Hz), which
is useful in mitigating vibrations. For Bragg-scattering pan-
els, the attenuation zone is sensitive to the geometrical
property of the inner scatter. However, for Local-resonant
panels, the lower bound frequencies of attenuation zones
are intensively related to the eigen-values the inner
oscillator.
2. Complete attenuation zone for periodic panels with sym-
metric unit cells can forbid waves/vibration in all directions.
However, directional attenuation zones for periodic panels
with non-symmetric unit cells are much suitable for
engineering applications. For Bragg-scattering panels, the
directional attenuation zones can be designed in certain
direction; for Local-resonant panels, since the dispersion
curves are not sensitive to the wave vector, it is easy to
design panels with directional attenuation zones for certain
waves/vibrations.
3. If the excitation frequencies fall within the attenuation
zones, vibrations can be blocked significantly by a periodic
panel with three or more units, resulting in efficient engi-
neering applications. The attenuation zones can be designed
with a wider frequency region to isolate the harmful seismic
wave, structure vibration and the boring room noise.
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Founda-
tion of China (51178036) and the Fundamental Research Funds for
the Central Universities (2013JBM010).
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