  We investigate the tunable vibration filtering properties of one-dimensional
diatomic granular crystals composed of arrays of stainless steel spheres and
cylinders interacting via Hertzian contact. The arrays consist of periodically
repeated three-particle unit cells (steel-cylinder-sphere) in which the length
of the cylinder is varied systematically. We apply static compression to
linearize the dynamic response of the crystals and characterize their linear
frequency spectrum. We find good agreement between theoretical dispersion
relation analysis (for infinite systems), state-space analysis (for finite
systems), and experiments. We report the observation of up to three distinct
pass bands and two finite band gaps and show their tunability for variations in
cylinder length and static compression.
