  Small axial and flexural oscillations are analyzed for a periodic and
infinite structure, constrained by sliding sleeves and composed of elastic
beams. A nested Bloch-Floquet technique is introduced to treat the non-linear
coupling between longitudinal and transverse displacements induced by the
configurational forces generated at the sliding sleeve ends. The action of
configurational forces is shown to play an important role from two
perspectives. First, the band gap structure for purely longitudinal vibration
is broken so that axial propagation may occur at frequencies that are forbidden
in the absence of a transverse oscillation and, second, a flexural oscillation
may induce axial resonance, a situation in which the longitudinal vibrations
tend to become unbounded. The presented results disclose the possibility of
exploiting configurational forces in the design of mechanical devices towards
longitudinal actuation from flexural vibrations of small amplitude at given
frequency.
