On Quasi-Minnaert Resonances in Elasticity and Their Applications to Stress Concentrations

This paper unveils and investigates a novel quasi-Minnaert resonance for an elastic hard inclusion embedded in a soft homogeneous medium in the sub-wavelength regime. The quasi-Minnaert resonance consists of boundary localization and surface resonance for the generated internal total and external scattered wave fields associated with the hard inclusion. It possesses similar quantitative behaviours as those for the classical Minnaert resonance due to high-contrast material structures, but occurs for a continuous spectrum of frequencies instead of certain discrete Minnaert resonant frequencies. We present a comprehensive analysis to uncover the physical origin and the mechanism of this new physical phenomenon. It is shown that the delicate high-contrast material structures and the properly tailored incident waves which are coupled together in a subtle manner play a crucial role in ensuring such phenomena. The stress concentration phenomena in both the internal total field and the scattered field components are also rigorously established. The analysis in this paper is deeply rooted in layer potential theory and intricate asymptotic analysis. We believe that our findings can have a significant impact on the theory of composite materials and metamaterials.