Yangyang Chen

Experimental study of an adaptive elastic metamaterial controlled by electric circuits

The ability to control elastic wave propagation at a deep subwavelength scale makes locally resonant elastic metamaterials very relevant. A number of abilities have been demonstrated such as frequency filtering, wave guiding, and negative refraction. Unfortunately, few metamaterials develop into practical devices due to their lack of tunability for specific frequencies. With the help of multi-physics numerical modeling, experimental validation of an adaptive elastic metamaterial integrated with shunted piezoelectric patches has been performed in a deep subwavelength scale. The tunable bandgap capacity, as high as 45%, is physically realized by using both hardening and softening shunted circuits. It is also demonstrated that the effective mass density of the metamaterial can be fully tailored by adjusting parameters of the shunted electric circuits. Finally, to illustrate a practical application, transient wave propagation tests of the adaptive metamaterial subjected to impact loads are conducted to valida...

A design of active elastic metamaterials for control of flexural waves using the transformation method

The ability to control flexural wave propagation is of fundamental interest in many areas of structural engineering and physics. Metamaterials have shown a great potential in subwavelength wave propagation control due to their inherent local resonance mechanism. In this study, we propose a transformation method to derive the material properties of a flexural waveguide and implement the functionality based on a design of active elastic metamaterials. The numerically demonstrated flexural waveguide can not only steer an elastic wave beam as predicted from the transformation method but also exhibit various unique properties including extraordinary wave beam deflection and tunabilities over a broad frequency range and various steering directions. The waveguide is equipped with an array of active elastic metamaterials composed of the electrorheological elastomer subjected to adjustable electric fields. Such metamaterial-based waveguides provide a new design methodology for guided wave signal modulation devices and could be useful for applications such as tunable beam steering, high signal-to-noise sensors, and structural health monitoring.

An adaptive metamaterial beam with hybrid shunting circuits for extremely broadband control of flexural waves

A great deal of research has been devoted to controlling the dynamic behaviors of phononic crystals and metamaterials by directly tuning the frequency regions and/or widths of their inherent band gaps. Here, we report a new class of adaptive metamaterial beams with hybrid shunting circuits to realize super broadband Lamb-wave band gaps at an extreme subwavelength scale. The proposed metamaterial is made of a homogeneous host beam on which tunable local resonators consisting of hybrid shunted piezoelectric stacks with proof masses are attached. The hybrid shunting circuits are composed of negative-capacitance and negative-inductance elements connected in series or in parallel in order to tune the desired frequency-dependent stiffness. It is shown theoretically and numerically that by properly modifying the shunting impedance, the adaptive mechanical mechanism within the tunable resonator can produce high-pass and low-pass wave filtering capabilities for the zeroth-order anti-symmetric Lamb-wave modes. These unique behaviors are due to the hybrid effects from the negative-capacitance and negative-inductance circuit elements. Such a system opens up important perspectives for the development of adaptive vibration or wave-attenuation devices for broadband frequency applications.

Wave propagation and absorption of sandwich beams containing interior dissipative multi-resonators

HighlightsA sandwich metamaterial beam with “metadamping” for broadband wave attenuation is designed.The attenuation of a transient blast‐induced elastic wave is numerically demonstrated.An analytical model for both infinite and finite sandwich structures is developed. Abstract In this study, a sandwich beam with periodic multiple dissipative resonators in the sandwich core material is investigated for broadband wave mitigation and/or absorption. An analytical approach based on the transfer matrix method and Bloch theorem is developed for both infinite and finite sandwich structures. Wave attenuation constants are theoretically obtained to examine the effects of various system parameters on the position, width and wave attenuation performance of the band gaps. The wave absorption coefficient of the sandwich beam is quantitatively studied to distinguish wave attenuation mechanisms caused by reflection and absorption. It is numerically demonstrated that a transient blast‐induced elastic wave with broadband frequencies can be almost completely mitigated or absorbed at a subwavelength scale. The results of this study could be used for developing new multifunctional composite materials to suppress impact‐induced and/or blast‐induced elastic waves which may cause severe local damage to engineering structures.

Broadband low-frequency sound isolation by lightweight adaptive metamaterials

Blocking broadband low-frequency airborne noises is highly desirable in lots of engineering applications, while it is extremely difficult to be realized with lightweight materials and/or structures. Recently, a new class of lightweight adaptive metamaterials with hybrid shunting circuits has been proposed, demonstrating super broadband structure-borne bandgaps. In this study, we aim at examining their potentials in broadband sound isolation by establishing an analytical model that rigorously combines the piezoelectric dynamic couplings between adaptive metamaterials and acoustics. Sound transmission loss of the adaptive metamaterial is investigated with respect to both the frequency and angular spectrum to demonstrate their sound-insulation effects. We find that efficient sound isolation can indeed be pursued in the broadband bi-spectrum for not only the case of the small resonators periodicity where only one mode relevant to the mass-spring resonance exists, but also for the large-periodicity scenario, ...

Elastic Metamaterials for Blast Wave Impact Mitigation

In the following chapter, two types of dissipative multi-resonator elastic metamaterials are considered for the broadband attenuation/mitigation of elastic waves. The first microstructural design consists of a triatomic mass-in-mass lattice where the influence of the internal damping amplitudes on broadband energy absorption is examined. The second metamaterial design considered is constructed from a sandwich beam containing multiple dissipative interior resonators. By utilizing the locally resonant motions of the internal resonant structures and intrinsic damping/viscoelastic properties of the metamaterial microstructure, broadband energy absorption can be clearly demonstrated for both microstructural designs. The underlying attenuation mechanisms in both designs are a negative effective mass and an effective metadamping coefficient that occur near the local resonant frequencies of the internal resonant masses. Based on these two working mechanisms, it is numerically demonstrated that the two metamaterial designs can strongly mitigate elastic waves over extremely broad frequency ranges at subwavelength scale. These elastic metamaterial designs have a wide range of potential applications including the suppression of blast or shock waves capable of severely damaging nearby structures.

An active metasurface for real-time multifunctional elastic wave control (Conference Presentation)

We design and experimentally demonstrate a linear active elastic metasurface for real-time and simultaneously multifunctional wave control on a steel plate. The metasurface consists of an array of circuit-controlled piezoelectric patches bonded on the plate separated by thin slots for active wave phase modulations. Our experiments illustrate that by properly programming digital circuits of metasurface unit cells, wave steering directions and paths can be arbitrarily tuned in real-time, which also has an excellent agreement with numerical simulations. We further explore that multiple wave control functions can be integrated into one within the circuits to achieve a simultaneously multifunctional wave control device by using only one metasurface layer. Our numerical results prove the feasibility of the design for broadband and oblique incident applications. The active metasurface breaks the time-revisal symmetry and behaves nonreciprocal propagations of elastic waves. Our design can be simply extended for other elastic wave mode control and wave mode conversion. We believe that the proposed active elastic metasurface could open new avenues for novel and unconventional real-time elastic wave control applications.

Bio-inspired self-agitator for convective heat transfer enhancement

Convective heat transfer plays an important role in both the fundamental research and the development of high-performance heat exchangers. Inspired by blades of grass vibrating in the wind, we developed a self-agitator for convective heat transfer enhancement. Because of fluid-structure interactions, the agitator, with self-sustained vibration, can generate strong vortices to significantly break the thermal boundary layer and improve fluid mixing for enhanced convective heat transfer. In particular, we establish a methodology to link the vorticity field at a preferred frequency to the optimal improvement in the convective heat transfer. To identify the self-agitator preferred frequency, mode analysis is performed with simulation results using dynamic mode decomposition. Experimental results are also obtained to further validate the proposed approach. These results show that the proposed self-agitator design can improve the convective heat transfer by 120% in a conventional heat exchanger without additional pumping power requirements and can achieve a Nusselt number of up to 30 within the laminar flow region, which is improved by 200% with the same Reynolds number compared to the clean channel.Convective heat transfer plays an important role in both the fundamental research and the development of high-performance heat exchangers. Inspired by blades of grass vibrating in the wind, we developed a self-agitator for convective heat transfer enhancement. Because of fluid-structure interactions, the agitator, with self-sustained vibration, can generate strong vortices to significantly break the thermal boundary layer and improve fluid mixing for enhanced convective heat transfer. In particular, we establish a methodology to link the vorticity field at a preferred frequency to the optimal improvement in the convective heat transfer. To identify the self-agitator preferred frequency, mode analysis is performed with simulation results using dynamic mode decomposition. Experimental results are also obtained to further validate the proposed approach. These results show that the proposed self-agitator design can improve the convective heat transfer by 120% in a conventional heat exchanger without additiona...