Spacetime modulation in floating thin elastic plates

Abstract

We consider the propagation of flexural-gravity waves in thin elastic plates floating atop nonviscous fluids, e.g., seawater, which are governed by a partial differential equation with Laplacian and tri-Laplacian terms. We investigate the effect of time modulation as well as spacetime modulation on thin floating elastic plates and show the peculiarity of the phenomena of the $k$-band gap and the rotated $k$-band gap in the context of flexural-gravity waves. This makes possible floating plates with nonreciprocal features and behaving as elastodynamic analogs of luminal electromagnetic metamaterials, with exotic applications in enhanced control of ocean waves, such as filtering devices, unidirectional acoustic propagation, and isolation effects and energy harvesting in maritime engineering.