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In a passive lossy acoustical system, sum rules derived from passivity explicitly relate the broadband response to the spatial dimension of the system, which provide important design criteria as well. In this work, the theory of Herglotz function is applied systematically to derive sum rules for unidimensional scattering problems relying on passive acoustic treatments which are generally made of rigid, motionless and subwavelength structures saturated by air. The rigid-boundary reflection, soft-boundary reflection and transmission problems are analysed. The derived sum rules are applied for guiding the designs of passive absorbers and mufflers: the required minimum space is directly predicted from the target (i.e. the desired absorption or transmission-loss spectra) without any specific design. Besides, it is possible to break this type of sum rules and fundamental constraints in particular cases. This property, if well used, could result in ultra-compact absorbers working at long wavelength up to infinity.

As building blocks of acoustic metamaterials, resonant scatterers have demonstrated their ability to modulate the effective fluid parameters, which subsequently possess extreme properties such as negative bulk modulus or negative mass density. Promising applications have been shown such as extraordinary absorption, focusing, and abnormal refraction for instance. However, acoustic waves can be further controlled in Willis materials by harnessing the coupling parameters. In this work, we derive the closed forms of the effective parameters from the transfer matrix in three asymmetric and reciprocal one-dimensional resonant configurations and exhibit the differences in terms of coupling coefficients. The way in which Willis coupling occurs in spatially asymmetric unit cells is highlighted. In addition, the analysis shows the absence of odd Willis coupling for reciprocal configurations. These effective parameters are validated against experimental and numerical results in the three configurations. This article paves the way of a novel physical understanding and engineering use of Willis acoustic materials.

[EN] Most simulations involving metamaterials often require complex physics to be solved through refined meshing grids. However, it can prove challenging to simulate the effect of local physical conditions created by said metamaterials into much wider computing sceneries due to the increased meshing load. We thus present in this work a framework for simulating complex structures with detailed geometries, such as metamaterials, into large Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) computing environments by reducing them to their equivalent surface impedance represented by a parallel-series RLC circuit. This reduction helps to simplify the physics involved as well as drastically reducing the meshing load of the model and the implicit calculation time. Here, an emphasis is made on scattering comparisons between an acoustic metamaterial and its equivalent surface impedance through analytical and numerical methods. Additionally, the problem of fitting RLC parameters to complex impedance data obtained from transfer matrix models is herein solved using a novel approach based on zero crossings of admittance phase derivatives. Despite the simplification process, the proposed framework achieves good overall results with respect to the original acoustic scatterer while ensuring relatively short simulation times over a vast range of frequencies.

[EN] In this work, we show that scattered acoustic vortices generated by metasurfaces with chiral symmetry present broadband unusual properties in the far-field. These metasurfaces are designed to encode the holographic field of an acoustical vortex, resulting in structures with spiral geometry. In the near field, phase dislocations with tuned topological charge emerge when the scattered waves interference destructively along the axis of the spiral metasurface. In the far field, metasurfaces based on holographic vortices inhibit specular reflections because all scattered waves also interfere destructively in the normal direction. In addition, the scattering function in the far field is unusually uniform because the reflected waves diverge spherically from the holographic focal point. In this way, by triggering vorticity, energy can be evenly reflected in all directions except to the normal. As a consequence, the designed metasurface presents a mean correlation-scattering coefficient of 0.99 (0.98 in experiments) and a mean normalized diffusion coefficient of 0.73 (0.76 in experiments) over a 4 octave frequency band. The singular features of the resulting metasurfaces with chiral geometry allow the simultaneous generation of broadband, diffuse and non-specular scattering. These three exceptional features make spiral metasurfaces extraordinary candidates for controlling acoustic scattering and generating diffuse sound reflections in several applications and branches of wave physics as underwater acoustics, biomedical ultrasound, particle manipulation devices or room acoustics.

Thermoacoustic amplifiers are analyzed in the framework of nonreciprocal Willis coupling. The closed form expressions of the effective properties are derived, showing that an applied temperature gradient causes the appearance of a nonreciprocal Willis coupling. Even and nonreciprocal Willis couplings are exhibited already in the first-order Taylor expansion of the solution and are of equal modulus but opposite sign, thus suggesting that the even Willis coupling is a reaction to the nonreciprocity introduced by the temperature gradients. These Willis couplings cause a coalescence point in the k space, which deviates from Re(k) = 0 (with k the wave number) and is thus a zero-group-velocity point, as well as the opening of an amplification gap at low frequency. Effective parameters and scattering properties are found in excellent agreement with experimental results. This article paves the way to further control the acoustic waves at very low frequencies with nonreciprocal systems.

[EN] We theoretically, numerically, and experimentally analyze the Density-Near-Zero (DNZ) regime of a one-dimensional acoustic metamaterial. This acoustic metamaterial is composed of thin elastic plates periodically clamped in an air-filled waveguide, and the effective dynamic zero mass density is obtained from the strong dispersion around the bandgaps associated with the resonances of the plates. We emphasize the importance of the impedance mismatch between the acoustic metamaterial and the surrounding waveguide at the frequency of the zero effective density in addition to the consequences of the inherent losses. As a result, the frequency of the zero phase propagation, i.e., the acoustic propagation with zero phase delay, is not exactly the frequency of the zero density and lies in the frequency bandgap where the effective density is negative. Considering these limitations, the zero phase propagation is still experimentally observed and a subwavelength acoustic dipole is numerically designed, thus demonstrating the possible realistic implementations of DNZ acoustic metamaterials.

[EN] The unusual viscoelastic properties of silica aerogel plates are efficiently used to design subwavelength perfect sound absorbers. We theoretically, numerically and experimentally report a perfect absorbing metamaterial panel made of periodically arranged resonant building blocks consisting of a slit loaded by a clamped aerogel plate backed by a closed cavity. The impedance matching condition is analyzed using the Argand diagram of the reflection coefficient, i.e., the trajectory of the reflection coefficient as a function of frequency in the complex plane. The lack or excess of losses in the system can be identified via this Argrand diagram in order to achieve the impedance matching condition. The universality of this tool can be further exploited to design more complex metasurfaces for perfect sound absorption, thus allowing the rapid design of novel and efficient absorbing metamaterials.

[EN] In this work we report a mechanisms providing symmetric perfect acoustic absorption by sub-wavelength structures in the ventilation problem. While in the problem of reflection the mechanism consists in critically coupling a single resonance independently of its nature, the problem of transmission becomes more complicated and a degenerate resonator with symmetric and antisymmetric resonances should be designed with both resonances critically coupled. The system analyzed in this work is made by a panel with a periodic distribution of slits, the upper wall of which are loaded by Helmholtz Resonators. The propagation in the slit is highly dispersive due to the presence of the resonators, producing a slow sound propagation before the resonance, and down shifting it to low frequencies. By controlling the geometry of the resonator, the visco-thermal losses can be tuned in order to compensate the leakage of the system and fulfill the critical coupling condition so activating the perfect absorption of sound. In the case of transmission, a double slit is needed, one acting as symmetric and the other one as antisymmetric resonators.