Wave properties of some periodic structures

In the context of wave propagation in damaged (elastic) solids, we develop an analytical approach for normal penetration of a plane wave through a two-dimensional array of cracks. Differently from our previous papers, the cracks' lines are not equally spaced along the direction of propagation (the cracks being periodically distributed only in the orthogonal direction). The linear system analytically obtained by means of a uniform approximation for one-mode range, is submitted to a standard method for numerical resolution. Reflecting the physical intuition, the transmission coefficient turns out to be (almost monotonically) decreasing with distance through the structure. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.