RESINators - Miniature Acoustic Resonator Systems

声学超材料是一种材料，其声学特性不是来自其组成原子的特性，而是来自形状和几何形状-它的构建方式，而不是它的构建方式。这种超材料可以以这样一种方式构造，以创造传统材料中不可能的材料特性，例如负密度和负体积模量-这些特性与我们期望材料的行为方式相反。这些材料中的声音传播是不寻常的，超材料可以用来掩盖物体的声音，以显示非常有效的噪音抑制，或者以奇怪的方式操纵声音。要使这些材料与现实世界的应用更相关，需要解决的一个问题是规模。这些结构的小型化是期望的，以提高功效和效率，并使超材料可能是可穿戴的，即，使得材料在人类努力的规模上。问题在于，典型的声学系统工作在越来越高的频率，因为它们被分解，远离音频频率，并且创建小结构以使例如耳机中的可穿戴材料具有挑战性和昂贵性。先进的制造方法正在进步，使得现在可以使用具有微尺度特征的3D打印方法来构建复杂的几何物体，尤其是由于我们的实验室和世界各地其他实验室的最新发展。这为快速制作小型声学系统原型（微型乐器）提供了可能性，这些系统可以堆叠在一起以创建声学超材料，同时仍然可以在音频频率下工作。我们寻求建立新的声学系统，该系统具有在音频频率下工作的微尺度特征，将3D打印和声学系统设计的进步结合在一起，以创造具有卓越声学性能的材料。高性能，同时重量轻，规模小。通过我们在新型聚合物和3d打印技术方面的工作，潜在材料设计的前景是这样的，我们可以致力于开发个人音频系统，这些系统可以构成下一代可穿戴消费产品技术的声学系统科学。

An acoustic metamaterial is a material in which its acoustic properties are derived not from the characteristics of its constituent atoms, but from the shape and geometry - the way that it is built, not from what it is built. Such metamaterials can be constructed in such a way as to create material properties that are impossible in traditional materials, such as negative density and negative bulk modulus - properties counterintuitive to the way in which we expect materials to behave. Acoustic propagation in these materials is unusual, and metamaterials can be used to cloak objects from sound, to show extremely efficient noise suppression, and otherwise manipulate sound in strange ways.One issue to tackle, to make these materials more relevant to real-world applications, is one of scale. Miniaturisation of these structures is desirable to improve efficacy and efficiency, and make metamaterials perhaps wearable, i.e. such that the materials are on the scale of human endeavours. The problems are that typically acoustic systems work at ever higher frequencies as they are miniaturised, moving away from audio frequencies, and also that creating small structures to enable wearable materials in, for example, headphones, is challenging and expensive.Advanced manufacturing methods are progressing such that it is possible now to build complex geometrical objects using 3D-printing methods with features in the microscale, not least due to recent developments in our laboratories and others worldwide. This opens up the possibility of rapidly prototyping small acoustic systems - miniature musical instruments - that can be stacked together to create acoustic metamaterials, while still working at audio frequencies.In this project, we seek to establish new acoustic systems built with microscale features that operate at audio frequencies pulling together advances in 3D printing and acoustic system design to create materials that have exceptional acoustic performance while being lightweight and small scale. The landscape of potential material design, enabled by our work on novel polymers and 3d printing technology, is such that we can aim to develop systems for personal audio that could constitute the science of audio of acoustic systems for the next generation of technologies in wearable consumer products.