The authors propose a metamaterial plate made of gradient refractive index phononic crystals for manipulation of the wavefront of propagating elastic waves in solid media. A square unit cell with through holes is considered as the basis for the proposed metematerial. Guidance on the design of the hole pattern and the choice of materials is obtained with the aid of transformation elasticity principles. Manipulation of a plane wavefront into a cylindrical wavefront is first observed through Finite Element simulations at low frequency (100 kHz), and then practically demonstrated through experiments. Wave propagation with and without the holey region is compared and possible applications at higher frequencies are discussed. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd