Three-dimensional thermal illusion devices with arbitrary shape

Since the concept of invisible cloak was proposed by Pendry and Leonhardt in 2006, many researchers have applied the theory of coordinate transformation to thermodynamics and overcome the complexity of inhomogeneous and anisotropic of material parameters. However, only two-dimensional(2 D) thermal illusion devices are researched recently. According to this situation, our study focuses on three-dimensional(3 D) thermal illusion devices including shrinker(or invisible cloak),concentrator, amplifier, reshaper, and rotator with arbitrary shape in a general way. In this paper, the corresponding material parameters of thermal illusion devices mentioned above are derived based on the theory of transformation thermodynamics and the simulated results agree well with the theoretical derivations. In addition, the conventional invisible cloak just controls the temperature gradient rather than the temperature value which is more concerned in physical applications. Here,we find that the temperature value of the cloaked object can be controlled by adjusting the location of the original point of the coordinate system.     

Acoustic carpet invisibility cloak with two open windows using multilayered homogeneous isotropic material

We present a method for designing an open acoustic cloak that can conceal a perturbation on flat ground and simultaneously meet the requirement of communication and matter interchange between the inside and the outside of the cloak. This cloak can be constructed with a multilayered structure and each layer is an isotropic and homogeneous medium. The design scheme consists of two steps: firstly, we apply a conformal coordinate transformation to obtain a quasi-perfect cloak with heterogeneous isotropic material; then, according to the profile of the material distribution, we degenerate this cloak into a multilayered-homogeneous isotropic cloak, which has two open windows with negligible disturbance on its invisibility performance. This may greatly facilitate the fabrication and enhance the applicability of such a carpet-type cloak.     

基于变换热力学的三维任意形状热斗篷设计

在变换热力学的基础上,通过坐标变换的方法,推导出三维任意形状热斗篷导热系数的通解表达式,并进行了全波仿真验证.结果表明:热流均能绕过保护区域流出,保护区域的温度保持不变,而且热斗篷外的温度场并没有破坏,具有很好的热保护和热隐身的效果.这一方法把变换热力学从二维拓展到三维,具有普遍的适用性.同时,这种技术为热流流动路径和目标温度场的控制奠定了理论基础,在微芯片、电动机的保护以及目标热隐身上有潜在应用.     

基于遗传算法的五模材料分层优化*

由于超材料的微结构尺度不能忽略,利用超材料微结构所集成的器件等效参数不是连续分布的,而是呈离散分布的。因此在利用超材料设计声学器件的过程中,需要对器件进行分层离散化,而分层方案的选取往往会影响器件的工作效果。该文基于五模材料水下隐身衣的设计理论,提出了一种基于遗传算法的五模材料隐身衣分层优化策略,并分别对优化前和优化后的分层隐身衣做了声学仿真。仿真结果表明采用优化策略后,隐身衣背景声场的散射能量和反射能量均有大幅度降低,并且对窄带探测信号和宽带探测信号均有较好的隐身效果,因此该分层优化策略能够显著提升隐身衣的隐身效果。该文所提出的分层优化策略为提升五模材料隐身衣性能提供了理论支持,并可以进一步推广至其他超材料器件的微结构设计中。     

Remote acoustic cloaks

Due to the correspondence of the acoustic equations to Maxwell??s equations of one polarization in two dimensions, we exploit theoretically the acoustic counterpart of the recently proposed remote invisibility cloak. The cloak consists of a circular cylindrical core with designed bulk moduli, and an ??anti-object?? embedded inside a shell with anisotropic mass densities. The material parameters of the cloaking shells are obtained by using the coordinate transformation method. The essence of the new design of cloaks relies on the ability that the cloaked object is no longer deafened by the cloaking shell, which is verified by both the far-field and near-field full-wave finite-element simulations in two dimensions.     

Finite-element modeling of an acoustic cloak for three-dimensional flexible shells with structural excitation

A finite-element model for three-dimensional acoustic cloaks in both cylindrical and spherical coordinates is presented. The model is developed through time-harmonic analysis to study pressure and velocity field distributions as well as the cloak’s performance. The model developed accounts for the fluid-structure interaction of thin fluid-loaded shells. A plane strain model is used for the thin shell. Mechanical harmonic excitation is applied to the fluid-loaded shell to investigate the effect of mechanical oscillation of the shell on the performance of the acoustic cloak. In developing this model, a deeper insight into the acoustic cloak phenomena presented by Cummer and Shurig in 2007 is presented. Different nonlinear coordinate transformations are presented to study their effect on the acoustic cloak performance.     

An arbitrary-shaped acoustic cloak with merits beyond the internal and external cloaks

Based on transformation acoustics, an arbitrary-shaped acoustic cloak capable of functioning as an information exchange-enabling internal cloak and a movement-allowing external cloak is presented. The general expressions of material parameters for the acoustic cloaks with arbitrarily conformal or non-conformal boundaries are derived, and then the performances of developed cloaks are validated by full-wave simulations. Finally, the different characteristics of the linear and nonlinear transformations-based cloaks are compared and analyzed. The proposed cloak could lead to wider applications beyond that of normal cloaks, since it effectively compensates the insufficiencies of traditional internal and external cloaks. Besides, this work also provides a new method to design bifunctional device and suggests an alternative way to make a large object invisible.     

Design of electromagnetic cloaks and concentrators using form-invariant coordinate transformations of Maxwell’s equations

The technique of applying form-invariant, spatial coordinate transformations of Maxwell’s equations can facilitate the design of structures with unique electromagnetic or optical functionality. Here, we illustrate the transformation-optical approach in the designs of a square electromagnetic cloak and an omni-directional electromagnetic field concentrator. The transformation equations are described and the functionality of the devices is numerically confirmed by two-dimensional finite element simulations. The two devices presented demonstrate that the transformation optic approach leads to the specification of complex, anisotropic and inhomogeneous materials with well directed and distinct electromagnetic behavior.     

Cloaking an acoustic sensor with single-negative materials

In this review, a brief introduction is given to the development of acoustic superlens cloaks that allow the cloaked object to receive signals while its presence is not sensed by the surrounding, which can be regarded as “cloaking an acoustic sensor”. Remarkably, the designed cloak consists of single-negative materials with parameters independent of the background medium or the sensor system, which is proven to be a magnifying superlens. This has facilitated significantly the design and fabrication of acoustic cloaks that generally require double-negative materials with customized parameters. Such innovative design has then been simplified further as a multi-layered structure comprising of two alternately arranged complementary media with homogeneous isotropic single-negative materials. Based on this, a scattering analyses method is developed for the numerical simulation of such multi-layered cloak structures, which may serve as an efficient approach for the investigation on such devices.     

A revisit to imperfect acoustic cloak of multi-layered shell structures considering sound speed and impedance matching

An imperfect multi-layered acoustic cloak is proposed for a two-dimensional cloaking zone based on feasible material properties. In this model, the matching of sound speed and acoustic impedance has been investigated, and the effects of material and geometric properties on the imperfect cloak have been studied for better design of the imperfect cloak. The imperfect cloak could be improved using appropriate changes in the design parameters. By increasing the thickness of the high density layer and with some changes in the sound speeds between the high density and the low density layers, the imperfect cloaking model showed better cloaking performance than Cummer–Schurig cloak. Also, present results show that the sound speed matching is more important for acoustic cloaking than the impedance matching. These results can be applied as a practical design guide for two-dimensional cloaks using multilayered structures composed of naturally existing materials.     

Beam controller using nonlinear embedded optical transformation

Flexible and adjustable beam splitters, expanders/compressors and the cloak are presented based on a universal two-dimensional transformation formula for the embedded transformation optics. Nonlinear transformation results by the suggested formula under different conditions reveal several interesting phenomena and potential applications. All beam controllers are achieved by the nonlinear coordinate transformation.     

Design of square-shaped heat flux cloaks and concentrators using method of coordinate transformation

A square-shaped heat flux cloak and a square-shaped heat flux concentrator have been designed theoretically according to the invariance symmetry of steady state thermal conductive equation. The direction of heat flux in these devices can be modulated as desired. Using the method of coordinate transformation, the inhomogeneous and anisotropic thermal conductivity in the transformation region have been acquired. Two-dimensional finite element simulations were performed to confirm the theoretical results.     

A feasible approach to achieve acoustic carpet cloak in air

A type of acoustic carpet cloak has been theoretically designed and numerically implemented in air using steel/air composites. By using the effective medium theory, the effective density and bulk modulus of the composite material are designed to agree with the spatially variant parameters calculated from the coordinate transformation approach. Great cloaking performance is achieved as an object is well hidden under a sound reflective surface in a wide frequency range. It has also been shown that sound can be effectively manipulated using the proposed composite materials because of its low complexity.     

任意横截面柱形热斗篷研究与设计

基于变换热力学,导出了具有非共形任意横截面的柱形热斗篷热导率表达式,并在此基础上设计了具有非共形横截面的柱形热斗篷.全波仿真结果表明,热斗篷迫使外部热流绕过斗篷,导致隐身区域热通量为零,从而具有热保护功能;同时,热流绕过斗篷后将恢复原来的温度场分布,使其具有完美热隐身功能.此外,基于所导出的变换媒质热导率表达式,设计并求解了具有规则共形和非规则共形横截面的柱形热斗篷,发现它们同样具有热保护和完美热隐身功能.这表明通过选择适当的边界函数,所得变换媒质热导率表达式可用于设计任意横截面柱形热斗篷,具有普遍的适用性,这种技术在计算机芯片、卫星和航天器等的热保护中有潜在应用.     

非均匀背景中任意柱状热斗篷的研究与设计

在变换热力学的基础上,通过坐标变换的方法严格推导出在层状背景和渐变背景下二维任意形状热斗篷导热系数的通解表达式,并在此基础上设计出非均匀背景下二维非共形热斗篷.全波仿真结果表明:在不同背景下,热流均能绕过保护区域流出,保护区域的温度保持不变,而且热斗篷外的温度场并没有破坏,具有很好的热保护和热隐身的效果.这一方法考虑到背景的复杂性,更加贴近工程实际应用,为未来灵活控制热流传递提供了一种可行的方法,对目标热隐身和热保护具有重要借鉴意义.     

隐声衣结构设计和实验研究新进展

隐声衣是一项使物体隐藏于声场的新技术,与传统吸声方式相比,隐声衣消除回波时不会在目标背后留下声影区。隐声衣的物理实现是重点研究方向之一,利用具有特殊性质的材料或结构消除散射是获得隐声效果的主要途径。文章综述了隐声衣研究在结构设计和实验方面的几项新发展。包括基于超常材料的隐声衣、基于温度递度的隐声衣、应用反演设计方法的隐声衣、有源隐声衣等,主要介绍隐声衣机理和结构设计方面的新思想,以及新型人工材料和人工结构在隐声衣研究中的应用。     

Improving the performance of acoustic invisibility with multilayer structure based on scattering analysis

In this paper, acoustic scattering from the system comprised of a cloaked object and the multilayer cloak with only one single pair of isotropic media is analyzed with a recursive numerical method. The designed acoustic parameters of the isotropic cloak media are assumed to be single-negative, and the resulting cloak can reduce acoustic scattering from an acoustic sensor while allowing it to receive external information. Several factors that may influence the performance of the cloak, including the number of layers and the acoustic dissipation of the medium are fully analyzed. Furthermore, the possibility of achieving acoustic invisibility with positive acoustic parameters is proposed by searching the optimum value in the parameter space and minimizing the scattering cross-section.     

Finite elements modelling of scattering problems for flexural waves in thin plates: Application to elliptic invisibility cloaks,rotators and the mirage effect

We propose a finite elements algorithm to solve a fourth order partial differential equation governing the propagation of time-harmonic bending waves in thin elastic plates. Specially designed perfectly matched layers are implemented to deal with the infinite extent of the plates. These are deduced from a geometric transform in the biharmonic equation. To numerically illustrate the power of elastodynamic transformations, we analyze the elastic response of an elliptic invisibility cloak surrounding a clamped obstacle in the presence of a cylindrical excitation i.e. a concentrated point force. Elliptic cloaking for flexural waves involves a density and an orthotropic Young’s modulus which depend on the radial and azimuthal positions, as deduced from a coordinates transformation for circular cloaks in the spirit of Pendry et al. [Science 312, 1780 (2006)], but with a further stretch of a coordinate axis. We find that a wave radiated by a concentrated point force located a couple of wavelengths away from the cloak is almost unperturbed in magnitude and in phase. However, when the point force lies within the coating, it seems to radiate from a shifted location. Finally, we emphasize the versatility of transformation elastodynamics with the design of an elliptic cloak which rotates the wavevector of a flexural wave within its core.     

基于各向同性材料的层状椭圆柱形声隐身衣设计

基于等效介质理论, 提出了具有共焦层状结构的椭圆柱形声隐身衣设计方法. 理论分析与有限元数值模拟表明, 所设计隐身衣依然具有完美隐身衣典型特征, 可使刚性圆柱体散射场明显减小, 并且在隐身衣区域表现出波阵面弯曲的特性, 同时在隐身衣外部波阵面保持不变. 增加隐身衣离散层数可以拓宽其有效工作频带, 改善隐身效果. 由于是一种线变换隐身衣, 隐身效果受到了入射波方向的影响, 只有当入射波方向与椭圆长轴平行时效果最佳. 另外当椭圆柱焦距非常小的时候, 可近似认为是圆柱形隐身衣. 仿真实验结果证明了方法的正确性. 该研究为实现复杂形状声隐身衣提供了一种有效途径.     

Bandwidth evaluation of dispersive transformation electromagnetics based devices

In this paper, the transient responses of some devices which are based on transformation electromagnetics are studied, such as invisible cloaks and concentrators, by using the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) numerical technique. In particular, effects of the inherent losses as well as the coating size of the ideal cylindrical cloak on its bandwidth and cloaking performance are examined. In addition, it is demonstrated that the performance of transformation electromagnetics based devices is affected by the material parameters in the design, although they may behave nicely under monochromatic plane wave illuminations. The obtained results are of interest for the future practical implementation of these structures.