Design and noise-reduction simulation of an acoustic metamaterial plate incorporating tunable shape memory cantilever absorbers

Metamaterials are materials having artificially tailored internal structure and unusual physical and mechanical properties. Due to their unique characteristics, metamaterials possess great potential in engineering applications. This study proposes a tunable metamaterial for the applications in acoustic isolation. Therefore, a stopband in the dispersion curve can be created because of the energy gap. For the conventional metamaterial, the stopband is fixed. Although the metamaterial with tunable characteristics has been proposed in the literature to extend its working stopband, the efficacy is usually compromised. In this study, cantilevers of tunable shape memory materials (SMM) via controlled phase transformation are incorporated into the metamaterial plate. Its theoretical finite element formulation for determining the dynamic characteristics is established. The effect of the configuration of the SMM cantilever absorbers on the metamaterial plate for the desired stopband in wave propagation is simulated by using finite element model and a commercial multi-physics software. The result demonstrates the tunable capability on the stopband of the metamaterial plate under different activation controls of the SMM absorbers, and shows the ability to trap the vibration at the designed frequency and prevent vibration wave from propagating downstream in different absorber arrangements and alloy phases. It should be beneficial to precision machinery and defense industries which have desperate need in vibration and noise isolation.