Applied Acoustics 185 (2022) 108388

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Applied Acoustics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apacoust

Noise attenuating performance of metasurfaces with regular Euclidean

tiling and uniformly embedded Helmholtz resonators
Alexandru Crivoi, Zheng Fan ⇑
School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Sound-attenuation capabilities of a certain class of subwavelength sound barriers based on wall-
Received 11 May 2021 embedded Helmholtz resonators and a ventilation duct are studied theoretically and numerically. A sim-
Received in revised form 21 August 2021 ple analytical expression for the broadband integral transmission attenuation is introduced for this type
Accepted 27 August 2021
of metasurface structures, which indicates that the sound blocking performance depends only on the
Available online 21 September 2021
main operational frequency, thickness and ventilation capacity of the structure. This result derived from
the lumped parameter theory implies that the trade-off between the barrier performance and its physical
footprint is inevitable and provides a practical guidance for the design strategies with specific targets and
limitations. Detailed finite element modelling (FEM) parameter study is performed both to validate the
theoretical predictions and test the limitations of simple lumped parameter approach. It was found that
the agreement between the analytical and finite element results is very good for the structure thickness
greater than 30 mm in a 300–1000 Hz frequency range. However, at smaller thickness values the FE
results start to diverge from the predictions and also become dependent on the specific cell shape, which
suggests that more advanced analytical approach is required for thinner metasurfaces.
Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction narrow-band sound-attenuating capacity around its main reso-

The problem of designing a thin sound barrier capable of broad-
band sound attenuation while maintaining a high ventilation effi-
ciency can be considered a ‘‘holy grail” of the modern
metamaterials research in the area of applied acoustics. Multiple
classical and recent efforts have been dedicated to the develop-
ment and optimization of silencer designs with these often
mutually-excluding characteristics [1–10]. The recent progress
includes the design of ultra-open metamaterial (UOM) silencers
based on Fano-like interference [8,11,12], cascading arrays of res-
onators [13] and layered micro-perforated plates [14,15]. However,
almost all research works are focused on finding a unique novel
structure with extraordinary sound attenuating properties while
ignoring the possible existence of hard theoretical limits for the
optimal performance of certain classes of structures. Here we make
a theoretical analysis of the silencing properties of a sub-
wavelength metasurface consisting of unit cells with a central duct
element and several wall-embedded branching Helmholtz res-
onators (HR). The Helmholtz resonator is a common device in
acoustic applications, consisting of a cavity connected to an orifice
channel known as ‘‘neck”. HR is primarily known for its
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: zfan@ntu.edu.sg (Z. Fan).
nance frequency [6]. There is vast amount of literature dedicated
to individual HR properties [16–19] including modified HR geome-
tries [20], and arrays of HR resonators [5] which have been utilized
to expand the bandwidth of sound attenuation.
The theoretical expression characterizing the full noise attenu-
ation capacity of a single HR connected to a duct has been recently
derived by Cai et al. using the lump parameter model [21]. We
further extend this approach and apply it to the unit metasurface
element with an arbitrary number of parallel-connected wall-
embedded HRs. The new final expression shows a simple depen-
dence between the total sound-blocking capacity over the broad
frequency range and the basic silencer properties such as structural
thickness, main operational frequency and the ventilation bypass
ratio. The result indicates an inevitable trade-off between the
physical properties of a metasurface silencer of this particular class
and its noise attenuation benefits. In order to verify this fact, we
further design three particular unit cell geometries correspondent
to three regular Euclidean tiling types of the plane: triangular,
square and hexagonal. We match the design dimensions in a such
way that all three unit cells have an equal thickness, ventilation
capacity and operating resonant frequency. Three-dimensional
Finite Element Method (FEM) simulation is utilized to calculate
and compare the transmission spectrum of the structures using
the open-source package Code-Aster [22]. The results show a good

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apacoust.2021.108388
0003-682X/Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A. Crivoi and Z. Fan Applied Acoustics 185 (2022) 108388

agreement with the theoretical predictions and demonstrate that non-zero real part, is discussed in the following sections. We model
(i) improving the noise blocking capacity inevitably comes with a plane wave with pressure amplitude P 1 and velocity U 1 which
either proportionally increased thickness or decreased ventilation enters the unit cell duct on one side and exits on the other side of
ratio at similar frequency range, (ii) low frequencies are much the barrier with the transmitted values P2 and U 2 . For the parallel
harder to block and require thicker structures with less ventilation. array of branched HRs, the transfer matrix coefficients from the
Furthermore, we discuss the differences in performance of cells equation
with three different shapes which appear at very low metasurface



P1 T 11 T 12 P2
thickness levels where the numerical transmission spectrum ¼ ð4Þ
results appear to deviate from the theoretical predictions. Finally, U1 T 21 T 22 U2
we demonstrate that while all three shapes have a similar perfor- get the values T 11 ¼ T 22 ¼ 1; T 12 ¼ 0 and T 21 ¼ N=Z r . Here we
mance if tuned-into the same resonant frequency, the higher num- neglected the effect of subwavelength barrier thickness on the
ber of resonators associated with the hexagonal cell allows more transfer matrix for simplicity. The magnitude of this effect is inves-
flexibility in adapting and optimizing the transmission spectrum tigated separately in the following paragraphs. The absolute value
for practical needs, and a wider spread of operating sub- of the transmission coefficient jTj can be subsequently calculated
frequencies results in higher total attenuation capacity. accordingly [8]:
 
 2 
2. Theoretical background jTj ¼   ð5Þ
2 þ Nc0 q0 =ðSd Z r Þ
In this paper we focus on a particular class of sound blocking where Sd is the area of the duct element cross-section. The trans-
metamaterials consisting of regular polygon cells, each cell con- mission loss can be expressed as
tains a ventilation orifice in the centre and a corresponding num-
ber of embedded equal HR cavities connected to the central 1 q c0 N
TL ¼ 20 lgð j2 þ 0 jÞ ð6Þ
orifice via narrower channels [23,24] (see Fig. 1 for the hexagonal 2 Sd Z r
cell illustration). In order to evaluate the broadband performance of our silencer
The unit cell of such metasurface can be modelled as a single metasurface, we can consider one of two similar metrics: either the
duct element of length t equal to the barrier thickness and a paral- previously proposed noise attenuation capacity coefficient C TL [21]:
lel array of N branched resonators of a trapezoidal prism shape Z
connected to the duct. In the beginning, we assume that all res- C TL ¼ TLdx; ð7Þ
onators are equal, and the total number N of HRs is equal to the
number of sides in the polygon cell. The transmission and reflec- where x is angular frequency, or an integral transmission reduction
tion spectrum of a single HR and a parallel array of HRs connected coefficient, C T :
to a duct has been well studied in previous works [5]. Based on the Z
lumped approach [6], complex impedance Z r of a single HR can be CT ¼ ð1  jTjÞdx; ð8Þ
expressed as:
Z r ¼ Z h  jZ c =ðkhÞ ð1Þ which allows to avoid a singularity point at resonant frequency in a
theoretical lossless case where T ! 0, and is more convenient for
where k is the wavenumber, h is the height of truncated pyramid
numerical comparisons. Following the calculation procedure devel-
cavity, Z h and Z c are the expressions for acoustic impedance of
oped in [21] and applying to the system with multiple resonators
the hole and the cavity:
connected in parallel, we obtain a final dependence for C TL :
2c0 q0
Zc ¼ ð2Þ NSh
Sc1 þ Sc2 C TL ¼ C 0 ð9Þ
Sd ðl þ 2Rh cer Þ
where c0 and q0 are the speed of sound and density of air, Sc1 and Sc2
where C 0 ¼ 5c0 =ð2 ln 10Þ is a constant independent of the structure.
are the areas of the truncated pyramid bases,
On the other hand, we know that the resonance frequency of HR
kc0 q0 ðl þ 2Rh cer Þ according to mass-spring model is
Zh ¼ j ð3Þ
Sh sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
c0 Sh
R2h
where Rh and Sh ¼ p are the radius and the area of HR neck orifice, fr ¼ ð10Þ
2p V c ðl þ 2Rh cer Þ
cer is the effective error correction coefficient for the orifice length l,
and no viscous energy losses assumed in this section for simplicity. where V c is the cavity volume, V c ¼ tSc ; t is the HR array thickness,
The effect of viscous layers on the HR performance, when Z h has a and Sc is the base area of the cavity prism. Combining the Eqs. 9 and

Fig. 1. Design of the metasurface hexagonal unit cell. (a) 2D plane view of the cell indicating six inner cavities of equal volume, (b) 3D side view of the solid cell rendering, (c)
zoomed-in air volume showing one of the six cavities which is a HR, with labelled key dimensions.

2
A. Crivoi and Z. Fan
10 we can get a modified expression for C TL depending purely on the
resonator cell physical characteristics:
2 in the FEM simulation. The physical process is modelled as a pres-
tf r
C TL ¼ C 1 
C VR
where we used the geometrical fact that the ventilation capacity C VR
is equal to the value of duct section area to the combined area of
resonator base walls, C VR ¼ Sd =ðNSc Þ. Here we also neglected the
thickness of walls separating the cavities and the duct since they
can be potentially made arbitrarily thin, and C 1 is the constant.
Eq. 11 represents a simple relationship between the theoretical
noise attenuation capacity of the metasurface unit cell with a ven-
tilation orifice and an arbitrary number of embedded HRs and the
physical characteristics of the sound barrier, such as thickness, ven-
tilation capacity and the operational silencing frequency. This
dependence has important engineering consequences, since it leads
to the several practical conclusions: (i) square dependence on the
resonant frequency indicates that larger wavelength noise is much
harder to attenuate and might require disproportionately large
increases in barrier thickness, (ii) at the same operational fre-
quency, reducing the barrier thickness will require a proportional
decrease in ventilation capacity and vice versa, having larger duct
areas will lead to corresponding increase in the structure thickness.
These conclusions are in perfect conceptual agreement with the
idea that there is no trick in the noise control, and increasing a
favourable dimension inevitably leads to increase in the other
structural dimension, unfavourable in terms of the physical
footprint.
For the study of viscous effects on the transmission coefficients,
we use a HR resistance model for our theoretical estimations. The
theoretical impedance value of the resonator neck from Eq. 3 is
adjusted for a positive resistance value associated with a viscous
layer [6]:
kq0 c0 dm ðl þ 2Rh cer Þ
ReðZ h Þ ¼ ; ð12Þ
Sh R h
where dm is the thickness of the viscous layer:
rffiffiffiffiffiffi
2m
dm ¼ ; ð13Þ
x
and m is the viscosity of the air. Theoretical results with and without
viscous effects are then compared with each other and the effect on
the integral noise attenuation is evaluated.
3. Results and discussion
We have developed the Finite Element Model (FEM) of the
metasurface unit cell using the open-source package Code Aster
Fig. 2. FEM of the hexagonal unit cell acoustic transmittance. (a) FEM mesh of the acoustic media inside the metasurface hexagonal unit cell; front view indicating the inlet
(red), and side 3D view of the mesh. (b) Comparison between the theoretical and numerical results.
Applied Acoustics 185 (2022) 108388
with built-in acoustic functionality. Fig. 2 (a) shows the tetrahedral
mesh of the air volume domain inside the hexagonal unit cell used
sure acoustics study solving the weak form of Helmholtz equations
ð11Þ
in frequency domain. The plane wave velocity boundary conditions
are assigned to the inlet face (shown in red in Fig. 2 (a)), and the
resulting pressure amplitude values are registered at the opposite
outlet face. The hard wall boundary conditions are applied to all
the side walls, and the anechoic exit condition (Z 0 ¼ q0 c0 ) is
applied to the outlet face.
3.1. Comparison of sample FEM and theoretical results
First, we have decided to validate the theoretical lumped model
for the acoustic impedance and transmission coefficient spectrum
of a single hexagonal cell with six equal embedded HRs.
The ventilation channel inlet is a hexagon with a side of 40 mm,
the thickness of the cell is 30 mm, and the diameter of each of the
six resonator orifices is 6 mm. Fig. 2 (b) is showing the comparison
between transmission coefficient simulation results and the theo-
retical predictions based on Eq. 5. The diagram shows a good
agreement indicating that the lumped theory prediction of the
HR impedance provides a good approximation for the considered
class of metamaterials. This also implies that the measure for the
sound attenuation coefficient of metasurface C TL which is based
on lumped theory, provides a reasonably good estimation of the
sound barrier performance, and we expect the hypothesis from
Eq. 11 to hold true for a variety of metasurface configurations.
Once we have verified that the FEM results show a fair agree-
ment with the lumped model for the transmission curve in lossless
scenario, it is logical to verify how the introduction of viscous layer
effects may affect the transmission spectrum comparisons. The
dimensions of unit hexagonal cell are kept the same, and the Eq.
12 adds the viscous effects into the theoretical model. Fig. 3(a)
compares the transmission, reflection and absorption spectrum
curves for two theoretical cases with and without viscous losses
taken into consideration. Fig. 3(b) compares the transmission spec-
trum for theoretical and FEM calculations with and without losses.
FEM model with viscous losses adds new ‘‘soft-wall” boundary
conditions on the wall surfaces of the HR cylindrical holes.
The resulting transmission curves with included viscous effects
show a moderate smoothing near the peak resonance frequency
region without other significant changes outside of this region,
both for theoretical and FEM calculations. Here we acknowledge
that the viscous effects have a measurable effect on the total noise
attenuation performance of the structure. However, since we com-
pare the transmission metrics of different structures against each
other, we can assume that the viscous loss impact will be compa-
rable on all the structures with a similar size of the holes, and
3
A. Crivoi and Z. Fan Applied Acoustics 185 (2022) 108388

Fig. 3. Comparisons of the transmission spectrum in case with and without viscous losses. The hexagonal unit cell has the same dimensions as in Fig. 2. (a) Theoretical results
for transmittance (T), reflection (R) and absorption (a) based on the lumped parameter theory, (b) Comparison of theoretical and numerical transmittance (T) in cases with (w)
and without (w/o) viscous losses.

therefore we exclude the viscous effects from the further theoret-
ical and FEM comparisons for simplicity.
Furthermore, in order to verify Eq. 11 numerically, we have per-
formed a parameter study using FEM and have checked the depen-
dencies on f r and t=C VR individually.
3.2. Dependence of integral transmission loss on the resonant
frequencies
Fig. 4 shows the results of the first such parameter study verify-
2 set appearing at lower resonance frequencies. This difference has
ing the f r component of Eq. 11. In order to separate the studied
parameters, we have produced a set of hexagonal cell designs with
the same thickness and ventilation capacity but different reso-
nance frequencies which are solely controlled by the diameter of
the HR neck orifice. Figs. 4 (a1–d1) provides the examples of the
FE mesh generated for studied hexagonal cells. Figs. 4 (a2–d2) dis-
play the corresponding transmission results which are simultane-
ously compared with the analytical predictions. The results
demonstrate a generally good agreement with slightly larger dif-
ference for smaller neck diameters. This effect might be attributed
to the fact that we used a constant value for the neck error correc-
tion coefficient in our analytical expressions for the HR properties.
It is expected that this simplification might produce discrepancies
at smaller neck diameter values; however, verifying this assump-
tion is a topic for separate study which is suggested for future
work.
Here we focus on the width of the transmission dip which
grows with increased neck diameter and in turn with f r (see Figs. 4
(a2–d2)). Fig. 5 (a) compares the observed values of the sound
attenuation performance with the predicted non-linear trend. We
have used an equivalent measure of the sound attenuation coeffi-
cient C T which numerically calculates the area above the T curve
in the transmission spectrum graph. The results show that the
FEM data points closely follow the predicted trend with a small off-
been attributed to the neck error correction simplifications and
primarily arises from the differences between the theoretical and
numerically observed resonance frequencies of HRs. Fig. 5 (b) fur-
ther clarifies this by demonstrating small deviations in f r values
which are more prominent for smaller neck diameter size. Never-
theless, we conclude that FEM results largely support the lumped
2
parameter theory predictions and the f r dependency in Eq. 11.
The main practical takeaway point here is that lower noise fre-
quencies are much harder to attenuate, an empirically well-
known fact in the noise control engineering. However, our analysis
attaches an asymptotic trend to this dependency and specifically
states that the attenuation capacity drops as a square factor of
the targeted noise frequency.

Fig. 4. FEM results of the sound attenuation performance for four different cell designs with various HR neck diameters. (a1–d1) Mesh of four FE designs with (a1)
Rh ¼ 1:5 mm, (b1) Rh ¼ 2 mm, (c1) Rh ¼ 3 mm, (d1) Rh ¼ 4 mm. (a2–d2) Corresponding sound attenuation spectrum plots for transmission coefficient T compared with the
theoretical predictions.

4
A. Crivoi and Z. Fan Applied Acoustics 185 (2022) 108388

Fig. 5. (a) Comparison between the theoretically predicted integral attenuation values and four simulation runs from Fig. 4. (b) Comparison between the resonance frequency
values predicted by theory and observed in FEM results.

3.3. Study of the trade-off between the barrier thickness and
ventilation capacity
The second stage of the parameter study involves the analysis of
the sound attenuation performance for the structures with different
thickness and ventilation capacity. Since our primary thesis here is
that the barrier performance does not explicitly depend on the cell
shape and is expected to be constant if the t=C VR is maintained at
the same level, we have adjusted our study design accordingly. A
square shape of the cell is chosen this time, and the t=C VR is kept
the same for all designs, meaning that while we change the cell
thickness, ventilation capacity is inversely adjusted in order to keep
the studied ratio constant. Also, it allows us to keep the volume of
each HR cavity the same for all designs and hence fix the expected
f r value. Therefore, we perform a series of FEM simulations which
are expected to produce similar transmission spectrum curves
and integral sound attenuation values. This approach allows us to
conveniently test the lumped parameter theory predictions at
different metasurface thickness levels. Figs. 6 (a–c) show three
examples of the studied designs which the same cavity volumes
and neck diameters. Additionally, every time the structure thick-
ness doubles, the duct section area is adjusted in order to double
the corresponding ventilation capacity as well.
Figs. 6 (d–e) display the transmission and attenuation capacity
results. It shows that the FEM values asymptotically approach the
constant theoretical value once the thickness approaches 30 mm
level. However, the results for thinner surfaces increasingly diverge
from the constant values assumed by Eq. 11 (see Fig. 6 (e),

Fig. 6. FEM results of the sound attenuation performance for different cell designs with various thickness and constant thickness-to-ventilation area ratio. (a–c) Mesh of three
FE designs with (a) t ¼ 15 mm, (b) t ¼ 30 mm, (c) t ¼ 60mm. (d) Frequency spectrum plots for transmission coefficient T corresponding to seven different thickness values, (e)
comparison between the theoretically predicted and FE-simulated integral sound attenuation values.

5
A. Crivoi and Z. Fan Applied Acoustics 185 (2022) 108388

Fig. 7. FEM simulation results of the transmission spectrum study for three different cells shapes: hexagonal, square and triangular. The thickness of the cells is (a) 60 mm, (b)
30 mm, (c) 15 mm, (d) 10 mm. (e) Dependences of the sound attenuation coefficients on the barrier thickness for three different shapes, benchmarked against the theoretical
prediction, (f) spread of attenuation values between the triangular and hexagonal unit cells.

10–20 mm thickness range). Fig. 6 (d) shows the underlying trans-
mission curves which provide certain information about the rea-
sons for the observed trend deviation. The first obvious
observation is that the peak attenuation frequency shifts to the left
continuously with the decreasing thickness. Having already veri-
fied that the barriers with lower resonant frequencies tend to pro-
duce lower attenuation capacity, the deviations from theoretical f r
values explain the observed deviation from the straight line in
Fig. 6 (e). On the other hand, the differences in predicted and sim-
ulated f r values for thin surfaces can be attributed to the high
aspect ratio of the resonators contained inside the thin barriers
with low ventilation capacity. In this case the cavity shape of a res-
onator is less similar to the ‘‘classical” HR cavity shape analysed by
the lumped parameter theory and therefore it is not surprising that
the observed resonant frequencies slightly differ from the simple
Eq. 10 predictions. The second less obvious observation from
Fig. 6 (d) is that the minimum T value for thin surfaces slightly
increases from the near-zero values correspondent to thicker
structures. In other words, FEM results show that the thin barriers
no longer produce a near-complete sound block at the resonant
frequencies thus further weighting down on the integral sound
attenuation capacity. In summary, we can conclude that Eq. 11
hold well in this parameter study as well, and one can achieve a
similar performance from thinner structures with low ventilation
and thicker structures with higher ventilation as long as the ratio
t=C VR is kept constant. It means that the trade-off in structural
properties, physical footprint and the acoustic benefits of the
barrier is inevitable, and it is advised to consider in each particular

6
A. Crivoi and Z. Fan
case which properties are worth to be sacrificed in favour of others.
The FEM results however indicate that for the thinner barriers
some additional corrections in the design might be required in
order to account for the drifting resonance frequency.
3.4. Effect of the unit cell polygon shape
Next we proceed to investigate the thickness dependencies in
more detail by designing three unit cell geometries based on three
regular Euclidean tiling structures of the plane: triangular, quadri-
lateral (square) and hexagonal, which we now use as a reference
model. We expect all three cell designs to provide a similar sound
blocking performance if their corresponding thickness, resonance
frequency and ventilation capacity is the same.
Fig. 7 provides a corresponding comparison between three reg-
ular Euclidean cells at four different cell thickness levels, from
60 mm down to 10 mm. Interestingly, at the largest thickness of
60 mm (see Fig. 7 (a)) the results are almost identical and support
the theoretical prediction that the sound attenuation performance
is design-independent as long as the thickness, ventilation capacity
and the cavity volumes of the panels are the same. Fig. 7 (b) show
that thinner panels produce some mismatch in the performance
which is comparable with the differences between theoretical pre-
dictions and FEM results covered in Fig. 2 (b). Finally, thinner pan-
els of 15 and 10 mm show the growing differences in the results
which support the earlier expressed idea about the possible limita-
tions of the lumped theory predictions. The overall attenuation
performance over the 300–1000 Hz range is shown in Fig. 7 (e).
Here we observe very interesting phenomena that in addition to
the deviation from a constant prediction for a particular cell shape
shown in Fig. 6 (e), the performance curves for different shapes
also diverge from each other for thinner structures. This points to
another possible limitation of a lumped theory at deep subwave-
length thickness levels, where the transmission performance starts
to also depend on the polygon type of the duct and the shape of
HRs. The largest observed performance difference between two cell
types, which in our case are triangular and hexagonal, is plotted in
Fig. 7 (f). The difference is rising very sharply with decreasing
thickness below the approximately 30 mm levels.
3.5. Unit cells with multiple resonance frequencies
Finally, we have aimed to answer the question whether there
might be potential benefits of using one cell design over the other
Fig. 8. Theoretical calculation of the transmission coefficient spectrum for a hexagonal cell with six parallel HRs. (Eq) all HR tuned to the same frequency, (Dist) distinctive
resonant frequencies are spread over the range of 300–900 Hz.
7
Applied Acoustics 185 (2022) 108388
in certain conditions or for specific purposes. The results shown in
Figs. 2–7 agree with the lumped theory prediction summarized in
Eq. 11 that simply using higher number of resonators does not pro-
vide any tangible practical benefits in sound attenuation unless we
use a bulkier structure with additional thickness or front wall area.
However, all the conclusions so far have been based on simplifica-
tion that we tune in all the resonators to the same frequency. If we
use different resonant frequencies, which can be conveniently
achieved by changing the HR orifice diameters while keeping the
cavity volumes equal, one of the targets for optimization is the
non-linear dependence of the C TL on the individual frequencies,
2
f r : C TL f r . Separating and spreading the frequencies over a certain
range f r1 > 0 will increase the overall integral C TL according to
the inequality:
2 2 2
ðf r  f r1 Þ þ ðf r þ f r1 Þ > 2f r ð14Þ
Fig. 8 illustrates the transmission coefficient spectrum of two
hexagonal cells, one with all equal resonators and another with
six HRs having equal cavity volumes but the orifice diameters
adjusted in order to spread six resonance frequencies over the
range of 300–900 Hz. While the usefulness of these designs
depends on the particular purpose, it is worth noting that the sec-
ond design produces a higher C TL coefficient of 139 as compared to
the first design’s capacity of 132.7. However, it is important to
notice that the spectrum in a single-dip curve can be produced
with either one, three, four or six equal HRs, provided that the
thickness and ventilation capacity stay the same, the result for a
curve with six narrow dips can only be produced with a hexagonal
cell and six different HRs. Therefore, the general conclusion is that
the hexagonal cell design ultimately brings more advantages, since
a higher number of HRs allow better flexibility in manipulating the
sound attenuation profile for particular needs and can produce a
broader variety of results.
4. Conclusion
We have performed an extensive analytical and numerical
study of the sound attenuation performance for a specific class of
sound blocking metamaterials consisting of a ventilation duct
and several wall-embedded HRs. A simple analytical formula with
significant practical implications has been proposed to evaluate
the performance of these structures based on the lumped parame-
ter theory. FEM study results showed a good overall agreement
with the theoretical predictions; however, the results have pointed
A. Crivoi and Z. Fan
to the limitations of the theory at smaller structure thickness levels
below around 30 mm level. Beyond this point the numerical results
start to diverge from the theory, and additionally, with decreasing
thickness the results start to become increasingly dependent on
the specific cell polygon shape. These observations get us to the
conclusion that while the simple lumped theory formulae well
describe the sound attenuation capacity of moderately thick barri-
ers (t > 30 mm at 300–1000 Hz noise frequency range), at thinner
levels a more advanced theory is required to correct the observed
deviations. Developing such a theory will be a focus of future stud-
ies on noise control applications based on HRs. Meanwhile, the
derived simplistic lumped theory expressions provide a good prac-
tical guidance for the sound barrier designs with a ventilation
capacity and emphasize an inevitable trade-offs in design between
the noise barrier thickness, ventilation properties and the opera-
tional noise frequency range.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Alexandru Crivoi: Methodology, Validation, Writing - original
draft. Zheng Fan: Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing,
Supervision.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful for the financial support from A*STAR
Science and Engineering Research Council under AME Individual
Research Grant (IRG) 2018 Grant Call (Project No. A1983c0030).
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