Waveguide characteristics of coupled in-plane waves

Abstract

In-plane waves in a waveguide made from a thin plate are described by a superposition of a set of orthogonal functions that satisfy the edge conditions of the waveguide. Due to the Poisson and shear effects, the displacement components of the in-plane waves along the two in-plane orthogonal coordinates are coupled and this coupling affects the propagation and spatial properties of the waveguide modes. The orthogonal functions and their associated wavenumbers represent the characteristics of the uncoupled modes of the waveguide where the above mentioned couplings are ignored. This study demonstrates that the characteristics of the waveguide modes are determined by the couplings of the uncoupled mode pairs, which become significant when the pairs satisfy the conditions of spatial coincidence. At some frequencies, certain waveguide modes can be determined by a single pair of uncoupled modes. For this case, the analytical solution for the waveguide modes exists and provides both a qualitative and quantitative interpretation of the characteristics of the waveguide mode.