Experimental validation of the band-gap and dispersive bulk modulus behaviour of locally resonant acoustic metamaterials

Abstract

Over the last decade there has been significant interest in the design and production of acoustic metamaterials with physical qualities not seen in naturally occurring media. Progress in this area has been stimulated by the desire to create materials that exhibit novel behaviour such as negative refraction due to negative material parameters, and band gaps in the frequency response of the material. An acoustic metamaterial is presented that consists of an acoustically transparent mesh with an array of split hollow spheres. Split hollow spheres are analogous to the split ring resonators found in many electromagnetic metamaterials and act as Helmholtz resonators providing a resonant band gap at low frequencies where achieving a Bragg gap would be impractical, and providing a dispersive effective bulk modulus that can become negative. Since an eventual goal of the work is to produce such materials on a micro-scale, the metamaterial is designed for, and produced using, 3D printing techniques (additive layer manufacturing). Results are presented for material comparing theory and experiment, and methods for increasing the bandwidth of the behaviour in question are proposed, including a mixed resonator solution. © 2013 Acoustical Society of America.