Tailoring Stress Waves in 2-D Highly Nonlinear Granular Crystals: Simulations and Experiments

We study the propagation of elastic stress waves in two-dimensional highly nonlin-ear granular crystals composed of square packings of spheres with and without cylindrical intruders, via experiments and numerical simulations. By varying the intruder material, we show the ability to alter the propagating wave front characteristics. Experiments agree well with dis-crete particle simulations