Integrated piezoelectric metamaterials for adaptive and improved noise and vibration mitigation

Metamaterials (MMs) have emerged as promising noise and vibration solutions which enable reconciling the often conflicting requirements of low mass and volume and high noise and vibration attenuation. Although their potential has been widely evidenced in a variety of (academic) demonstrators, the manufacturing of MMs is far from mature while their performance is mostly limited to narrowband noise and vibration reduction. The main hypothesis in this project is that by levering on the suitability of insert injection moulding for mass-production and the versatility of additive manufacturing to create geometrically complex resonator inclusions, mass-manufacturable integrated MM solutions can be produced. Alongside passive vibro-acoustic performance broadening strategies which rely on optimally designed resonator properties and their distribution, embedding smart elements within the resonant inclusions can enable (smart) MM systems with enhanced (adaptive) broadband noise and vibration performance. Therefore this research will focus on insert injection moulding approaches and design for both passive and smart additive manufacturing based resonant inclusions, a multi-physical integrated MM modeling framework for fast performance predictions and a first-of-their-kind injection moulded (smart) MM panel with demonstrated broadband improved vibro-acoustic performance.