Acoustic metamaterial-based energy harvesting of mechanical waves: Modeling, optimization and experiments

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Acoustic metamaterials (AMMs) are artificial periodic structures composed of small unit-cells which behave like a continuous material with unconventional effective properties. Acoustic and elastic waves in AMMs may show many anomalous phenomena, e.g. negative refraction, superlensing, cloaking and localization, and thus have many innovative and challenging engineering applications. Energy harvesters, which can collect the mechanical energy of propagating waves and convert it into electrical power, may be designed by introducing piezoelectric structures into AMM-based field concentrators. In the proposed project, AMM-based field concentrators for mechanical waves will be developed, and the piezoelectric energy harvesting of propagating acoustic/elastic waves in the field concentrators will be studied. The scientific objectives of the present research project are:  Design of the field concentrators for propagating mechanical waves (acoustic/elastic waves) by transformation acoustics/elastodynamics. Topology optimization for the unit-cell design based on the finite element method (FEM). Development of the analytical modeling and numerical simulation methods for calculating the electromechanical responses of the piezoelectric structures. Multi-field numerical simulations of the energy harvesting devices, manufacturing of the devices and measurements of the energy harvesting efficiency in the laboratory.