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Broadband Acoustic Transmission Enhancement through a Structured Stiff

Plate with Locally Resonant Elements

Article  in  Chinese Physics Letters · November 2012

DOI: 10.1088/0256-307X/29/11/114301

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 CHIN. PHYS. LETT. Vol. 29, No. 11 (2012) 114301

Broadband Acoustic Transmission Enhancement through a Structured Stiff Plate

with Locally Resonant Elements *
LI Yong(李勇)1,2 , LIANG Bin(梁彬)1,2 , ZOU Xin-Ye(邹欣晔)1 , CHENG Jian-Chun(程建春)1,2**
1
Key Laboratory of Modern Acoustics, MOE, Institute of Acoustics, Department of Physics,
Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093
2
State Key Laboratory of Acoustics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190

(Received 9 April 2012)

Broadband acoustic transmission enhancement (ATE) is realized for a periodically structured stiff plate without
any opening that is conventionally thought to be only capable of supporting narrowband ATE, by introducing
locally resonant (LR) elements. This exotic phenomenon is interpreted by analyzing the vibration pattern of the
structure-induced LR modes, and is well modeled by a simple “spring-mass” system which reveals the contribution
of the LR effect to the important broadband performance. Our findings should help to better understand the
physical mechanism of ATE and may have potential impact on ultrasonic applications such as broadband acoustic
filters or compact acoustic devices in subwavelength scale.

PACS: 43.20.+g, 43.35.+d, 42.79.Dj DOI: 10.1088/0256-307X/29/11/114301

In the last decade, the extraordinary optics trans-
mission through metal plates patterned with subwave-
length apertures has attracted much attention due to
its prospective applications.[1−5] Motivated by the in-
novative phenomenon in the optics system, investiga-
tions of acoustic waves through a similar structure im-
mersed in fluid have been widely reported.[6−19] It is
demonstrated that the acoustic transmission enhance-
ment (ATE) can be realized through hard solids perfo-
rated with periodic slits/holes.[6−12] The exotic phe-
nomenon is caused by either the Fabry–Pérot (FP)
resonance in the slits/holes or the coherent diffrac-
tion effect due to the periodicity. Another type of
structure consisting of periodic grooves on both sides
with a slit at the center is also proposed to realize the
ATE, which should arise from the structured-induced
acoustic surface waves.[13−15] It should be noted that
the rigid solid is assumed in most of the investiga-
tions, which necessarily requests the existence of some
openings in the structures. Recently, a periodically
structured plate without any opening was presented
and the ATE was successfully observed.[16,17] It is at-
tributed to the resonant excitation of the nonleaky
Lamb modes which intrinsically exist in the plate. In
fact, the consideration of full elastic equations and the
structure-fluid coupling endow richer physics in such
systems. However, due to the constraint of the dis-
persion relation of Lamb waves, the ATE could only
be achieved within one or two frequencies with narrow
bandwidth, which may remarkably hinder its practical
application. Up to now, an effective approach is yet
to be proposed for realizing broadband ATE despite
the potential significance in various practical situa-
tions such as broadband acoustic filters.
In this Letter, we demonstrate that broadband
ATE can be realized in the subwavelength region for
a periodically structured stiff plate without any open-
ing by introducing locally resonant (LR) elements. It
turns out that the structure-induced LR effect[20−22]
will generate more flat bands in the dispersion rela-
tion whose vibration pattern will be analyzed by in-
vestigating the total displacement distribution. We
further present a simple mass-spring model to inter-
pret the exotic phenomenon of broadband ATE, which
clearly shows the crucial role played by the LR effect.
The contribution of the LR effects to the broadband
ATE is also studied by inspecting the dependence of
the performance on the incident angle. Potential ap-
plication of the broadband ATE can be expected in a
variety of practical situations such as medical appli-
cations of ultrasound.
As illustrated in Fig. 1, the proposed structure,
which is immersed in water, consists of a uniform
brass plate (thickness 𝑡 = 0.7 mm) patterned with pe-
riodic T-shaped brass gratings on both sides (period
𝑝 = 3.5 mm). A T-shaped grating is made of a thin rib
plate (width 𝑤1 = 0.1 mm and thickness 𝑡1 = 0.6 mm)
and a cap plate (width 𝑤2 = 3 mm and thickness
𝑡2 = 0.25 mm). The rib plate connects the cap plate
and the uniform plate. Throughout the study, the
finite element method (FEM) is employed for numer-
ical simulations. In the numerical simulations, one
primitive cell is considered and the periodic bound-
ary conditions are imposed on the 𝑦 direction and

* Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos 10904068, 10834009, 11174138 and 11174139,

Research Fund for the Doctoral Program (for new scholar) of Higher Education of China under Grant No 20100091120039, and A
Project Funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions.
** Corresponding author. Email: jccheng@nju.edu.cn

© 2012 Chinese Physical Society and IOP Publishing Ltd

114301-1

the perfectly matched layer is imposed on the output
side. The material parameters are 𝜌w = 1000 kg/m3 ,
𝜌b = 8600 kg/m3 , 𝑐w = 1498 m/s, 𝑐l = 4000 m/s and
𝑐t = 2100 m/s. Here the parameters of 𝜌w and 𝜌b refer
to the mass densities of water and brass, respectively,
𝑐w , 𝑐l and 𝑐t represent the acoustic velocity in the wa-
ter, the longitudinal and transversal velocities in the
brass, respectively.
Uniform Cap
w1
w2
Water
y 0.4
t1
x 0
Fig. 1. (Color online) Schematic diagram of the proposed
structure, which is immersed in water and consists of a
uniform plate decorated with T-shaped gratings at both
sides. A T-shaped grating consists of a rib plate and a cap
plate.
1.0
Power transmission
0.8
D
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
0.2 0.4 0.6
Fig. 2. (Color online) The power transmission at normal
incidence plotted as a function of the normalized frequency
𝑝/𝜆0 for the proposed structure, where the symbols 𝑝 and
𝜆0 refer to the structure period and the wavelength in wa-
ter. The one for the reference uniform plate (black dash
lines) is also illustrated. The symbols A, B, C and D
represent the particular frequencies located at 271 kHz,
310 kHz, 346 kHz and 156 kHz, respectively.
The power transmission of normally incident
acoustic waves through the proposed structure (red
solid line) is shown in Fig. 2. For comparison, the
power transmission of the unstructured plate with the
same thickness (black dashed line) is also illustrated
in Fig. 2. It is obviously observed that the signifi-
cant phenomenon of ATE can be identified as the
normalized frequency 𝑝/𝜆0 ranges from 0.63 to 0.88
(𝑣𝑖𝑧. the driving frequency ranges from 270 kHz to
376 kHz) below the famous Wood’s anomaly (indi-
cated as arrow) at 𝑝 = 𝜆0 , where 𝜆0 represents the
wavelength in water. It could be found that the band-
width of ATE through the proposed structure is nearly
6 times broader than the previous results achieved for
a similar uniform plate in which there is only one
narrow peak responsible for ATE.[16] It is apparent
that the wavelength of the acoustic incident waves at
the transmission peak is much larger than any char-
CHIN. PHYS. LETT. Vol. 29, No. 11 (2012) 114301
acteristic lengths of the sample. It is therefore rea-
sonable to conclude that the broadband ATE is not
due to the FP resonance or the coherent diffraction
effect of the periodic T-shaped gratings. Note also
that there is another transmission peak located at ap-
proximately 𝑝/𝜆0 = 0.365 (𝑣𝑖𝑧. 156 kHz), which will
be later proved to stem from the same physical mech-
anism.
(a) 1 1
0.8 0.9
Rib
t
0.6 0.8
Brass
Water
p
(b)
0.7
t2
0.2 0.6
0.5
(c)
-0.2 0.4
-0.4 0.3
(d) -0.6
0.2
-0.8 0.1
A B C
-1 0.0
Fig. 3. (Color online) The spatial intensity of acoustic
pressure field and the total displacement distribution for
four specified frequencies (indicated as A, B, C and D in
Fig. 2). The rainbow bar refers to the total displacement
Wood's field in the brass plates and the wave bar represents the
anomaly acoustic pressure field in the water.
In order to further understand the physical mecha-
0.8 1.0 1.2
nism behind the broadband ATE, we inspect the spa-
/
tial intensity of acoustic pressure field in water and the
total displacement distribution in brass at the four
particular frequency points shown in Fig. 2, and the
typical results are illustrated in Fig. 3. The frequency
point considered in Fig. 3(a) exactly corresponds to
the transmission peak of the narrowband ATE in pre-
vious works,[16] where the antisymmetric Lamb modes
are excited and then the energy can penetrate into the
other side. Figures 3(b) and 3(c) exhibit an interest-
ing phenomenon that the vibration energy of the brass
plate is concentrated in the cap plate, which implies
that these modes intrinsically belong to the LR ones.
The similar phenomenon can also be seen in Fig. 3(d).
In fact, the frequency points considered in Figs. 3(c)
and 3(d) should pertain to the second and the first
branches of LR modes, respectively. It is also note-
worthy that these LR modes are the flexural standing
modes, observable from the total displacement distri-
bution shown in Fig. 3. Physically, due to the strong
coupling[23,24] between the rib plate and the uniform
plate, the LR vibration in one cap plate can be trans-
mitted through the uniform plate to the correspond-
ing cap plate on the other side. As a result, broad-
band ATE through the proposed structure is achieved
due to the coupled excitation of the LR modes and
the antisymmetric Lamb modes, which will be further
114301-2
 CHIN. PHYS. LETT. Vol. 29, No. 11 (2012) 114301
proved later.
1.0
(a)
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
Power transmission
1.0
(b)
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
1.0
(c)
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
0.2 0.4 0.6
/
0.8 1.0
Fig. 4. (Color online) The power transmission for the pro-
posed structure at normal incidence for (a) three partic-
ular values of the width of the rib plate: 𝑤1 = 0.1 mm,
𝑤1 = 0.2 mm, and 𝑤1 = 0.3 mm, (b) three particular
values of the thickness of the rib plate: 𝑡1 = 0.4 mm,
𝑡1 = 0.6 mm and 𝑡1 = 0.8 mm, and (c) three particular
values of the thickness of the cap plate: 𝑤2 = 2.8 mm,
𝑤2 = 3.0 mm and 𝑤2 = 3.2 mm, respectively. The black
arrows indicate the direction of the LR frequency shift as
the parameter of 𝑡1 or 𝑤1,2 increases.
In physics, an LR structure can always be modeled
by a simple “spring-mass” system.[25,26] In this partic-
ular case, the rib plate plays the role of a “spring” and
the cap plate could be treated as a “mass” attached
to the “spring”. The resonant frequency could then be
[25,26]
roughly
√︁ estimated by the “spring-mass” model:
𝑘
𝑓 ∝ 𝑚1 +𝑚2 , where 𝑘 is the effective elastic con-
stant, 𝑚1 is the mass of the rib plate and 𝑚2 is the
mass of the cap plate. On the basis of the spring-mass
model, increase of the width of the rib plate (𝑣𝑖𝑧., 𝑤1 )
is equivalent to an enhancement of the effective elastic
constant, which could be regarded as parallel connec-
tion. On the other hand, increasing the thickness of
the rib plate (𝑣𝑖𝑧., 𝑡1 ) equivalently decreases the effec-
tive elastic constant, which could be treated as series
connection. In these cases, the mass of the rib plate
𝑚1 also increases while the mass of the cap plate 𝑚2
remains unchanged. This indicates that the resonant
frequency of the proposed structure should increase
(decrease) when the width (thickness) of the rib plate
increases. The power transmissions at normal inci-
dence through the proposed structure are shown in
Figs. 5(a) and 5(b) as functions of the thickness and
the width of the rib plate. It is shown that the depen-
dences of the locations of the ATE peaks on the thick-
ness and the width of the rib plate agree well with the
results predicted by using the spring-mass model (𝑣𝑖𝑧.
blue shift in Fig. 5(a) and red shift in Fig. 5(b) as indi-
cated by the arrows). It is noteworthy in Fig. 5(b) that
the increase of thickness of the rib plate dramatically
reduces the heights of two transmission peaks near
156 kHz and 271 kHz, i.e., the peaks D and A shown
in Fig. 2, respectively. Despite the seeming similarity,
the underlying mechanisms for the variations of these
two peaks should be different. For the peak D, the in-
crease of the thickness of the rib plate will weaken the
coupling between the cap plate and the uniform plate.
It thus becomes more difficult for the vibrations in the
front rib plate to transmit to the other side, result-
ing in a much lower transmission peak. For the peak
A, however, it is apparent that the transmission peak
marked as peak C in Fig. 2 will approach peak A in the
spectrum when the thickness of the rib plate increases.
The excitation of the antisymmetric flexural waves in
the uniform plate and the consequent transmission at
1.2 peak A should be less effective due to more energy
being concentrated in the rib plate during increasing
the thickness of the rib plate. On the other hand, the
width of the cap plate (𝑣𝑖𝑧. 𝑤2 ) is apparently associ-
ated with the wavelength of the LR standing modes.
It can therefore be expected that the LR frequency
should decrease as 𝑤2 increases, which is consistent
with the dependence of the transmission on 𝑤2 shown
in Fig. 5(c). These facts provide solid evidence that
the phenomenon of broadband ATE inherently stems
from the structure-induced coupled excitation of anti-
symmetric Lamb modes and the LR modes.
(a) 1 1
0.8 0.9
0.6 0.8
0.4 0.7
(b)
0.2 0.6
0 0.5
-0.2 0.4
(c) -0.4 0.3
-0.6 0.2
-0.8 0.1
-1 0.0
Fig. 5. (Color online) The spatial intensity of the acous-
tic pressure field and the total displacement distribution
for the specified modes at certain incident angle 𝜃 = 20∘
at three specified frequencies.
It is well known that the frequency of LR
modes is almost independent of the incident wave
direction.[20,26] The spatial intensity of the acoustic
pressure field and the total displacement distribution
are studied for incident angles 𝜃 = 20∘ at the two
particular frequency points marked as C and D in
Fig. 2 (𝑣𝑖𝑧., 346 kHz and 156 kHz) respectively, and
the respective results are illustrated in Figs. 5(a) and
5(b). It is obvious that the LR modes can be ex-
cited and the ATE is also achieved. Another inter-
114301-3
 CHIN. PHYS. LETT. Vol. 29, No. 11 (2012) 114301
esting phenomenon which can be observed in Fig. 5(c)
is that another LR mode appears at 244 kHz due to
the break of symmetry by the oblique incidence. This
phenomenon is unique, which can only occur in such
structures where LR effects are introduced and will
not be found in the previous works.[16,17]
In summary, we realize a broadband ATE in the
subwavelength region through a periodically struc-
tured stiff plate by introducing LR elements. The
phenomenon of ATE is identified within a broadband
whose bandwidth is almost 6 times broader than that
of the previous related works. We further present a
simple mass-spring model to interpret the exotic phe-
nomenon of broadband ATE, which clearly shows the
crucial role played by the LR effect. Prospective in-
dustrial application of the broadband ATE can be an-
ticipated in varied areas, such as the medical applica-
tions of ultrasound, with the improvement and opti-
mization of the current system.
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