The generalized Floquet-Bloch spectrum for periodic thermodiffusive layered materials

The dynamic behaviour of periodic thermodiffusive multi-layered media excited by harmonic oscillations is studied. In the framework of linear thermodiffusive elasticity, periodic laminates, whose elementary cell is composed by an arbitrary number of layers, are considered. The generalized Floquet-Bloch conditions are imposed, and the universal dispersion relation of the composite is obtained by means of an approach based on the formal solution for a single layer together with the transfer matrix method. The eigenvalue problem associated with the dispersion equation is solved by means of an analytical procedure based on the symplecticity properties of the transfer matrix to which corresponds a palindromic characteristic polynomial, and the frequency band structure associated to wave propagating inside the medium is finally derived. The proposed approach is tested through illustrative examples where thermodiffusive multilayered structures of interest for renewable energy devices fabrication are analyzed. The effects of thermodiffusion coupling on both the propagation and attenuation of Bloch waves in these systems are investigated in detail.