Assembling hydrodynamic cloaks to conceal complex objects from drag

Transformation hydrodynamics and the corresponding metamaterials have been proposed as a means to exclude the drag force acting on an object. Here, we report a strategy to deploy the hydrodynamic cloaks in a more practical manner by assembling different-shaped cloaking parts. Our strategy is to first model a square-shaped cloak and a carpet cloak and then combine them to conceal a more complex-shaped space in the three-dimensional hydrodynamic flow. With the derivation of transformation hydrodynamics, the coordinate transformations for each hydrodynamic cloaking are demonstrated with the calculated viscosity tensors. The pressure and velocity fields of the square, triangular (carpet), and exemplary three-dimensional house-shaped cloaks are numerically simulated, thus showing a cloaking effect and reduced drag. This study suggests an efficient way of cloaking complex architectures from fluid-dynamic forces.     

Broadband optimization of a pentamode-layered spherical acoustic waveguide

Transformational acoustics offers the theoretical possibility of cloaking obstacles within fluids, provided metamaterials having continuously varying bulk moduli and densities can be found or constructed. Realistically, materials with the proper, continuously varying anisotropies do not presently exist. Discretely layered cloaks having constant material parameters within each layer are a viable alternative, but due to their discrete nature, may become ineffective outside of narrow frequency ranges. Because of such limitations, there is interest in finding discretely layered systems that can be effective in as wide as possible bandwidth without the need for unrealizable material properties within each layer. The present work introduces a novel methodology for finding optimal material parameters for use in such layered cloaks. In principle, the technique could be applied to any acoustic or electromagnetic scattering problem, but for purposes of demonstration, this paper considers a fluid-loaded acoustically hard sphere with a cloak that comprised layered pentamodes, whose material properties are constrained to lie within reasonable ranges relative to the density and bulk modulus of water.     

Elastodynamic behavior of mechanical cloaks designed by direct lattice transformations

Steering waves in elastic solids is more demanding than steering waves in electromagnetism or acoustics. As a result, designing material distributions which are the counterpart of optical invisibility cloaks in elasticity poses a major challenge. Waves of all polarizations should be guided around an obstacle to emerge on the downstream side as though no obstacle were there. Recently, we have introduced the direct-lattice-transformation approach. This simple and explicit construction procedure led to extremely good cloaking results in the static case. Here, we transfer this approach to the dynamic case, i.e., to elastic waves or phonons. We demonstrate broadband reduction of scattering, with best suppressions exceeding a factor of five when using cubic coordinate transformations instead of linear ones. To reliably and quantitatively test these cloaks efficiency, we use an effective-medium approach.     

Plasmonic cloaking and scattering cancelation for electromagnetic and acoustic waves

One popular approach to cloaking objects from electromagnetic waves at moderately long wavelengths is the scattering cancelation technique. This mechanism is based on the use of a single homogeneous thin layer to cover an object of interest in order to provide scattering suppression in a given frequency band. This approach has also been recently extended to acoustic waves. This paper provides an investigation of the physical nature of scattering cancelation by a uniform thin layer for both electromagnetic and acoustic waves in inviscid fluids. Two distinct scattering cancelation regions are obtained within the available parameter space: a non-resonant plasmonic cloaking region and an anti-resonant cloaking region, which are identified and compared in both the electromagnetic and acoustic domains. Although both types of operations allow for the suppression of the dominant scattering orders, the resulting internal fields and physical functionality of the cloaks present distinct differences between the two domains. We discuss analogies and differences between these functionalities and their implications in electromagnetic and acoustic cloaking problems, with an insight into their practical implementation.     

声学/弹性相位梯度超表面设计: 原理、功能基元、可调和编码

声学/弹性超表面是一类亚波长厚度的二维超材料, 具有很强的声波/弹性波操控能力, 在声学成像、通信、隐身、伪装、振动/噪声控制、能量收集、无损检测等领域具有潜在的应用. 本文主要综述了声学/弹性相位梯度超表面的最新发展, 包括设计原理、功能基元设计、波场操控及其应用、可调超表面设计, 以及新兴的数字编码超表面. 最后, 展望了该领域未来的研究方向.      

Antiplane elastic wave cloaking using metamaterials,homogenization and hyperelasticity

We consider the problem of how to cloak objects from antiplane elastic waves using two alternative techniques. The first is the use of a layered metamaterial in the spirit of the work of Torrent and Sanchez-Dehesa (2008) who considered acoustic cloaks, motivated by homogenization theories, whilst the second is the use of a hyperelastic cloak in the spirit of the work of Parnell et al. (2012). We extend the hyperelastic cloaking theory to the case of a Mooney–Rivlin material since this is often considered to be a more realistic constitutive model of rubber-like media than the neo-Hookean case studied by Parnell et al. (2012), certainly at the deformations required to produce a significant cloaking effect. Although not perfect, the Mooney–Rivlin material appears to be a reasonable hyperelastic cloak. This is clearly encouraging for applications. We quantify the effectiveness of the various cloaks considered by plotting the scattering cross section as a function of frequency, noting that this would be zero for a perfect cloak.     

Elastic metamaterials with local resonances: an overview

Metamaterials are artificial composite materials engineered to have properties that may not be found in nature. By exploring locally resonant effect of the building units, elastic metamaterials are able to possess negative values of effective mass, effective bulk or shear modulus. Mass-spring and continuum material versions of these elastic metamaterials are reported and the physical mechanisms of negative effective parameters are demonstrated. Applications of metamaterials to acoustic cloaking and superlensing are also discussed.     

Design and analysis of nonlinear-transformation-based broadband cloaking for acoustic wave propagation

A coordinate-transformation method can be used to design invisibility cloaks for many types of waves, including acoustic waves. The traditional method for designing a cloak depends on a transformation from a virtual space to a physical space. Previous acoustic cloaks that are mainly designed with linear-transformation-based acoustics have drawbacks that acoustic wave trajectories in the cloaks cannot be controlled and tuned. This work uses a nonlinear mapping from a ray trajectory perspective to construct acoustic cloaks with tunable non-singular material properties. Use of a ray trajectory equation is a straightforward and alternate way to study propagation characteristics of different types of waves, which allows more flexibility in controlling the waves. A broadband cylindrical cloak for acoustic waves in an inviscid fluid is realized with layered non-singular, homogeneous, and isotropic materials based on a nonlinear transformation. Some advantages and improvements of the invisibility nonlinear-transformation cloak over a traditional linear-transformation cloak are analyzed. The invisibility capability of the nonlinear-transformation cloak can be tuned by adjusting a design parameter that is shown to have influence on the acoustic wave energy flowing into the region inside the cloak. Numerical examples show that the nonlinear-transformation cloak is more effective for making a domain undetectable by acoustic waves in an inviscid fluid and shielding acoustic waves from outside the cloak than the linear-transformation cloak in a broad frequency range. The methodology developed here can be used to design nonlinear-transformation cloaks for other types of waves.     

A novel design scheme for acoustic cloaking of complex shape based on region partitioning and multi-origin coordinate transformation

Acoustic cloaking is an important application of acoustic metamaterials. This article proposes a novel design scheme for acoustic cloaking based on the region partitioning and multi-origin coordinate transformation. The cloaked region is partitioned into multiple narrow strips. For each strip, a local coordinate system is established with the local origin located at the strip center, and a coordinate transformation in the local coordinate system is conducted to squeeze the material along the strip length direction to form the cloaked region. To facilitate the implementation of the acoustic cloak, the multilayer effective medium is used to approximate the non-uniform anisotropic material parameters. The effectiveness of the proposed coordinate transformation method is verified by comparing the results from our method with those in the literature. Firstly, the results of a circular acoustic cloak in the literature are reproduced by using our finite element (FE) simulations for validation. Then, a comparison is made between the traditional coordinate transformation scheme and our new scheme for simulating an elliptical acoustic cloak. The results indicate that the proposed multi-origin coordinate transformation method has a better cloaking effect on the incident wave along the ellipse minor axis direction than the traditional method. This means that for the same object, an appropriate transformation scheme can be selected for different incident wave directions to achieve the optimal control effect. The validated scheme is further used to design an arch-shaped cloak composed of an upper semicircular area and a lower rectangular area, by combining the traditional single-centered coordinate transformation method for the semicircular area and the proposed multi-origin method for the rectangular area. The results show that the designed cloak can effectively control the wave propagation with significantly reduced acoustic pressure level. This work provides a flexible acoustic cloak design method applicable for arbitrary shapes and different wave incident directions, enriching the theory of acoustic cloaking based on coordinate transformation.     

五零能模式材料设计的非线性有限元计算方法

五零能模式材料是一种新型人工超材料,特征为其弹性模量矩阵的6个特征值中5个为零,可用等效体积模量来描述,表现出类似流体的性质,可被应用于声学隐声斗篷的设计中。然而,根据A.N.Norris[1]提出的理论,设计五零能模式材料时,与应用变换声学方法设计一般声学人工超材料不同,要求其满足一非线性偏微分方程约束。本文利用非线性有限元的完全拉格朗日方法,推导了这一偏微分方程的弱形式,并给出了相应的非线性有限元计算列式,以及迭代求解的具体算法。最后,给出了五零能摸式材料设计的二维和三维坐标变换数值算例。     

Active elastic metamaterials for subwavelength wave propagation control

Recent research activities in elastic metamaterials demonstrate a significant potential for subwavelength wave propagation control owing to their interior locally resonant mechanism. The growing technological developments in electro/magnetomechanical couplings of smart materials have introduced a controlling degree of freedom for passive elastic metamaterials. Active elastic metamaterials could allow for a fine control of material physical behavior and thereby induce new functional properties that cannot be produced by passive approaches. In this paper, two types of active elastic metamaterials with shunted piezoelectric materials and electrorheological elastomers are proposed.Theoretical analyses and numerical validations of the active elastic metamaterials with detailed microstructures are presented for designing adaptive applications in band gap structures and extraordinary waveguides. The active elastic metamaterial could provide a new design methodology for adaptive wave filters, high signal-to-noise sensors, and structural health monitoring applications.     

折纸超材料折展稳态特性研究

Origami metamaterials can regulate and control macroscopic deformation by continuous deformation of their internal microstructure. Hence, mechanical properties such as Poisson's ratio, stiffness, and modulus of the metamaterials can be adjusted and designed. This work theoretically studied the mechanical behavior of origami metamaterials under the synergy of complex internal configuration and folding motion, with the methods of torsion spring equivalent and energy principle. Here, we established a mechanical model to describe the folding deformation of the metamaterials, and analyzed the influence of geometric parameters on external loading. Through parameter analysis, it is found that the external loading exhibits monotonicity during the unfolding process and does not have stability. The external loading can show three situations such as monotonicity, mono-stability and bi-stability during the folding process, which are closely related to the parameters. This work provides important guidance to origami metamaterials for improving the design of the configuration and the regulation of their performance.      

力学超材料研究进展与减振降噪应用

力学超材料是一类由人工微结构单元构筑的复合结构或复合材料,具有天然材料所不具备的静力学/动力学性能.由于这些超常特性通常取决于微结构单元而非材料组分,这就为力学性能调控和结构功能材料设计提供了新思路.本文在简述力学超材料概念的提出、发展及其超常力学性能的基础上,以装备减振降噪工程需求为牵引,重点探讨力学超材料在水声调控,空气声吸隔声降噪,结构减振抗冲设计等方面的应用探索及发展趋势,为相关领域的科研及工程人员提供一定参考.     

Designing orthotropic materials for negative or zero compressibility

There has been considerable interest in materials exhibiting negative or zero compressibility. Such materials are desirable for various applications. A number of models or mechanisms have been proposed to characterize the unusual phenomena of negative linear compressibility (NLC) and negative area compressibility (NAC) in natural or synthetic systems. In this paper we propose a general design technique for finding metamaterials with negative or zero compressibility by using a topology optimization approach. Based on the bi-directional evolutionary structural optimization (BESO) method, we establish a systematic computational procedure and present a series of designs of orthotropic materials with various magnitudes of negative compressibility, or with zero compressibility, in one or two directions. A physical prototype of one of such metamaterials is fabricated using a 3D printer and tested in the laboratory under either unidirectional loading or triaxial compression. The experimental results compare well with the numerical predictions. This research has demonstrated the feasibility of designing and fabricating metamaterials with negative or zero compressibility and paved the way towards their practical applications.     

On band gaps of nonlocal acoustic lattice metamaterials: a robust strain gradient model

We have proposed an “exact” strain gradient(SG) continuum model to properly predict the dispersive characteristics of diatomic lattice metamaterials with local and nonlocal interactions. The key enhancement is proposing a wavelength-dependent Taylor expansion to obtain a satisfactory accuracy when the wavelength gets close to the lattice spacing. Such a wavelength-dependent Taylor expansion is applied to the displacement field of the diatomic lattice, resulting in a novel SG model. For various k...     

折纸结构和折纸超材料动力学研究进展

折纸结构和折纸超材料由于其无穷的设计空间,突出的变形状、变大小、变拓扑特性,以及由折叠诱发的超常规力学特性,在最近几年迅速成为数学、物理和工程学科的研究前沿和热点.折纸结构和折纸超材料在航天、医疗、材料、机器人等众多工程领域具有广泛的应用前景,其典型的代表包括大型空间可展开结构、自折叠可重构机器人、微型可折叠器械等.随...     

Transformational cloaking from seismic surface waves by micropolar metamaterials with finite couple stiffness

Transformational elastodynamics can be used to protect sensitive structures from harmful waves and vibrations. By designing the material properties in a region around the sensitive structure, a cloak, the incident waves can be redirected as to cause minimal or no harmful response on the pertinent structure. In this paper, we consider such transformational cloaking built up by a suitably designed metamaterial exhibiting micropolar properties. First, a theoretically perfect cloak is obtained by designing the properties of an (unphysical) restricted micropolar material within the surrounding medium. Secondly, we investigate the performance of the cloak under more feasible design criteria, relating to finite elastic parameters. In particular, the behavior of a physically realizable cloak built up by unrestricted micropolar elastic media is investigated. Numerical studies are conducted for the case of buried as well as surface breaking structures in 2D subjected to incident Rayleigh waves pertinent to seismic loading. The studies show how the developed cloaking procedure can be utilized to substantially reduce the response of the structure. In particular, the results indicate the performance of the cloak in relation to constraints on the elastic parameters.     

Broadband acoustic cloaks based on the homogenization of layered materials

We present an analysis of acoustic cloaks based on the homogenization of two fluidlike materials, with an emphasis on periodically layered imperfect cloaks, by removing the singularities of the acoustic parameters required for ideal cloaks. The conditions that material layers should satisfy are systematically analyzed and critically discussed according to their feasibility.     

基于扭曲Kagome点阵结构的一模材料设计

零能模式超材料指弹性矩阵的特征值中有若干为零的弹性材料,根据零特征值的个数可将其分类为一模至五模材料。当前,针对五模材料已有较深入研究,并在水声和弹性波调控方面获得重要应用,而对其他类型零能模式材料的研究尚未展开。本文对扭曲Kagome周期桁架这样一类欠约束点阵材料的有效弹性性质进行了研究,结果表明通过调节点阵材料的微观几何构型和杆件刚度,该类结构能够涵盖一系列一模材料谱系。针对给定一模弹性张量,发展了软-硬模式分离的微结构逆向优化设计策略。通过特定一模材料中的波传播现象对有效性质预测和微结构设计进行了数值验证。     

多孔压电分流超材料及其带隙特性研究

设计了一种新型多孔压电分流超材料构型,以单、双孔元胞构型为例,研究了其带隙特性和有限周期振动传递特性,并与未开孔压电分流超材料板进行了对比分析。计算结果表明:与未开孔压电超材料相比,两种构型在低频处的压电局域共振带隙频率更低,带宽变窄,且均会在高频范围内出现额外带隙,随着孔宽δ的增大,额外带隙数量逐渐增多;对应特定的孔宽δ的两种元胞构型均产生带宽大于1kHz的超宽带隙。该构型结合了压电分流超材料和声子晶体的特点,与传统未开孔压电分流超材料相比,具备低频和高频同时抑振的特性。