Computational Material design study of acoustic metamaterials and structures by topology optimization

Abstract

Acoustic metamaterials are artificially designed and manufactured structures with dy-namical properties that are not typically found in naturally-occurring materials. The design of acoustic metamaterials is considered to be in its infancy but is progressively emerging to provide both scientists and engineers with a wide range of practical appli-cations, mostly dealing with acoustic waves’ manipulation, thus becoming a key ena-bling technology to overcome a number of the near future scientific and engineering challenges. At present, the design of acoustic metamaterials is mainly done with proce-dures based on experience and results obtained from theoretical studies which have a lack of real practical application. In this context, cutting-edge computational design tools such as multiscale modelling, model order reduction and multiobjective optimiza-tion techniques can play an important role to unravel the design of more sophisticated and efficient acoustic metamaterials. The aim of this project is to set up the basis for the future development of sophisticated numerical tools for the design of acoustic met-amaterials. In this sense, the results presented here can be regarded as examples to better understand the concept of acoustic metamaterials and considered a review of the currently existing models and numerical techniques available for studying them.