Finite Element Analysis 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 vibration or acoustic isolation. For the state-of-the-art structural configurations in metamaterial, the geometry and mass distribution of the crafted internal structure is employed to induce the local resonance inside the material. Therefore, a stopband in the dispersion curve can be created because of the energy gap. For the conventional metamaterial, the stopband is fixed and unable to be adjusted in real-time once the design is completed. Although the metamaterial with distributed resonance characteristics has been proposed in the literature to extend its working stopband, the efficacy is usually compromised. In this study, the incorporation of tunable shape memory materials (SMM) via phase transformation into the metamaterial plate is proposed. 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 COMSOL Multiphysics 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 arrangement and alloy phase. To conclusion, this study should be beneficial to precision machinery and defense industries which have desperate need in vibration and noise isolation.