Aerogel as a Soft Acoustic Metamaterial for Airborne Sound

Abstract

Soft acoustic metamaterials utilizing mesoporous structures have been proposed recently as a means for tuning the overall effective properties of the metamaterial and providing better coupling to the surrounding air. In this paper, the use of silica aerogel is examined theoretically and experimentally as part of a compact soft acoustic metamaterial structure, which enables a wide range of exotic effective macroscopic properties to be demonstrated, including negative density, density near zero, and nonresonant broadband slow-sound propagation. Experimental data are obtained on the effective density and sound speed using an air-filled acoustic impedance tube for flexural metamaterial elements, which have been investigated previously only indirectly due to the large contrast in acoustic impedance compared to that of air. Experimental results are presented for silica aerogel arranged in parallel with either one or two acoustic ports and are in very good agreement with the theoretical model.