Soft electroactive materials can undergo large deformation subjected to either mechanical or electrical stimulus, and hence, they can be excellent candidates for designing extremely flexible and adaptive structures and devices. This paper proposes a simple one-dimensional soft phononic crystal (PC) cylinder made of dielectric elastomer (DE) to show how large deformation and electric field can be used jointly to tune the longitudinal waves propagating in the PC. A series of soft electrodes, which are mechanically negligible, are placed periodically along the DE cylinder, and hence, the material can be regarded as uniform in the undeformed state. This is also the case for the uniformly prestretched state induced by a static axial force only. The effective periodicity of the structure is then achieved through two loading paths, i.e., by maintaining the longitudinal stretch and applying an electric voltage over any two neighboring electrodes or by holding the axial force and applying the voltage. All physical field variables for both configurations can be determined exactly based on the nonlinear theory of electroelasticity. An infinitesimal wave motion is further superimposed on the predeformed configurations, and the corresponding dispersion equations are derived analytically by invoking the linearized theory for incremental motions. Numerical examples are finally considered to show the tunability of wave propagation behavior in the soft PC cylinder. The outstanding performance regarding the band gap (BG) property of the proposed soft dielectric PC is clearly demonstrated by comparing with the conventional design adopting the hard piezoelectric material. One particular point that should be emphasized is that soft dielectric PCs are susceptible to various kinds of failure (buckling, electromechanical instability (EMI), electric breakdown (EB), etc.), imposing corresponding limits on the external stimuli. This has been carefully examined for the present soft PC cylinder such that the applied electric voltage is always assumed to be less than the critical voltage except for one case, in which we illustrate that the snap-through instability of the axially free PC cylinder made of a generalized Gent material may be used to efficiently trigger a sharp transition in the BGs.
Tuning Elastic Waves in Soft Phononic Crystal Cylinders Via Large Deformation and Electromechanical Coupling