Jean-Philippe Groby

Ultra-thin metamaterial for perfect and quasi-omnidirectional sound absorption

Using the concepts of slow sound and of critical coupling, an ultra-thin acoustic metamaterial panel for perfect and omnidirectional absorption is theoretically and experimentally conceived in this work. The system is made of a rigid panel with a periodic distribution of thin closed slits, the upper wall of which is loaded by Helmholtz Resonators (HRs). The presence of resonators produces a slow sound propagation shifting the resonance frequency of the slit to the deep sub-wavelength regime (

The use of slow waves to design simple sound absorbing materials

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Enhancing the absorption properties of acoustic porous plates by periodically embedding Helmholtz resonators

). By controlling the geometry of the slit and the HRs, the intrinsic visco-thermal losses can be tuned in order to exactly compensate the energy leakage of the system and fulfill the critical coupling condition to create the perfect absorption of sound in a large range of incidence angles due to the deep subwavelength behavior.

Use of slow sound to design perfect and broadband passive sound absorbing materials

We demonstrate that the phenomenon of slow sound propagation associated with its inherent dissipation (dispersion + attenuation) can be efficiently used to design sound absorbing metamaterials. The dispersion relation of the wave propagating in narrow waveguides on one side of which quarter-wavelength resonators are plugged with a square lattice, whose periodicity is smaller than the wavelength, is analyzed. The thermal and viscous losses are accounted for in the modeling. We show that this structure slows down the sound below the bandgap associated with the resonance of quarter-wavelength resonators and dissipates energy. After deriving the effective parameters of both such a narrow waveguide and a periodic arrangement of them, we show that the combination of slow sound together with the dissipation can be efficiently used to design a sound absorbing metamaterial which totally absorbs sound for wavelength much larger than four times the thickness structure. This last claim is supported by experimental results.

Acoustic wave propagation in a macroscopically inhomogeneous porous medium saturated by a fluid

This paper studies the acoustical properties of hard-backed porous layers with periodically embedded air filled Helmholtz resonators. It is demonstrated that some enhancements in the acoustic absorption coefficient can be achieved in the viscous and inertial regimes at wavelengths much larger than the layer thickness. This enhancement is attributed to the excitation of two specific modes: Helmholtz resonance in the viscous regime and a trapped mode in the inertial regime. The enhancement in the absorption that is attributed to the Helmholtz resonance can be further improved when a small amount of porous material is removed from the resonator necks. In this way the frequency range in which these porous materials exhibit high values of the absorption coefficient can be extended by using Helmholtz resonators with a range of carefully tuned neck lengths.

Acoustic response of a rigid-frame porous medium plate with a periodic set of inclusions.

Perfect (100%) absorption by thin structures consisting of a periodic arrangement of rectangular quarter-wavelength channels with side detuned quarter-wavelength resonators is demonstrated. The thickness of these structures is 13-17 times thinner than the acoustic wavelength. This low frequency absorption is due to a slow sound wave propagating in the main rectangular channel. A theoretical model is proposed to predict the complex wavenumber in this channel. It is shown that the speed of sound in the channel is much lower than in the air, almost independent of the frequency in the low frequency range, and it is dispersive inside the induced transparency band which is observed. The perfect absorption condition is found to be caused by a critical coupling between the rectangular channel (sub-wavelength resonators) and the incoming wave. It is shown that the width of a large absorption peak in the frequency spectrum can be broadened if several rectangular channels in the unit cell are detuned. The detuning is achieved by varying the length of the side resonators for each channel. The predicted absorption coefficients are validated experimentally. Two resonant cells were produced with stereolithography which enabled the authors to incorporate curved side resonators.

Sustainable sonic crystal made of resonating bamboo rods.

The equations of motion in a macroscopically inhomogeneous porous medium saturated by a fluid are derived. As a first verification of the validity of these equations, a two-layer rigid frame porous system considered as one single porous layer with a sudden change in physical properties is studied. A simple wave equation is derived and solved for this system. The reflection and transmission coefficients are calculated numerically using a wave splitting-Greens function approach (WS-GF). The reflected and transmitted wave time histories are also simulated. Experimental results obtained for materials saturated by air are compared to the results given by this approach and to those of the classical transfer matrix method (TMM).

A TIME DOMAIN METHOD FOR MODELING VISCOACOUSTIC WAVE PROPAGATION

The acoustic response of a rigid-frame porous plate with a periodic set of inclusions is investigated by a multipole method. The acoustic properties, in particular, the absorption, of such a structure are then derived and studied. Numerical results together with a modal analysis show that the addition of a periodic set of high-contrast inclusions leads to the excitation of the modes of the plate and to a large increase in the acoustic absorption.

Quasi-perfect absorption by sub-wavelength acoustic panels in transmission using accumulation of resonances due to slow sound

The acoustic transmission coefficient of a resonant sonic crystal made of hollow bamboo rods is studied experimentally and theoretically. The plane wave expansion and multiple scattering theory (MST) are used to predict the bandgap in transmission coefficient of a non-resonant sonic crystal composed of rods without holes. The predicted results are validated against experimental data for the acoustic transmission coefficient. It is shown that a sonic crystal made from a natural material with some irregularities can exhibit a clear transmission bandgap. Then, the hollow bamboo rods are drilled between each node to create an array of Helmholtz resonators. It is shown that the presence of Helmholtz resonators leads to an additional bandgap in the low-frequency part of the transmission coefficient. The MST is modified in order to account for the resonance effect of the holes in the drilled bamboo rods. This resonant multiple scattering theory is validated experimentally and could be further used for the description and optimization of more complex resonant sonic crystals.

Propagation of acoustic waves in a one-dimensional macroscopically inhomogeneous poroelastic material

In many applications, and in particular in seismology, realistic propagation media disperse and attenuate waves. This dissipative behavior can be taken into account by using a viscoacoustic propagation model, which incorporates a complex and frequency-dependent viscoacoustic modulus in the constitutive relation. The main difficulty then lies in finding an efficient way to discretize the constitutive equation as it becomes a convolution integral in the time domain. To overcome this difficulty the usual approach consists in approximating the viscoacoustic modulus by a low-order rational function of frequency. We use here such an approximation and show how it can be incorporated in the velocity-pressure formulation for viscoacoustic waves. This formulation is coupled with the fictitious domain method which permits us to model efficiently diffraction by objects of complicated geometry and with the Perfectly Matched Layer Model which allows us to model wave propagation in unbounded domains. The space discretization of the problem is based on a mixed finite element method and for the discretization in time a 2nd order centered finite difference scheme is employed. Several numerical examples illustrate the efficiency of the method.