Abstract
Supratransmission refers to a phenomenon that nonlinear medium allows large-amplitude waves to transmit energy through the band gap, which has been extensively studied in many nonlinear models. Recently, controlling supratransmission using bi-stable nonlinearities has gained growing attentions. Nevertheless, the general principles of controlling supratransmission using multi-stable nonlinearities have remained elusive. As a first step to address such challenge, this work presents programmable supratransmission using tri-stable nonlinearities. Through numerical simulations, we demonstrate that a mechanical chain consisting of tri-stable oscillators can achieve rich programmable features of supratransmission by simply tuning the tri-stable potential energy curve, providing new insights into how supratransmission can be controlled. The current work deepens the understanding of programmable supratransmission using multi-stable nonlinearities.
