Enhancing of broadband sound absorption through soft matter

This paper proposed a metamaterial design method that uses soft matter for constructing a unique soft acoustic boundary to effectively improve broadband sound absorption performance. Specifically, attaching a flexible polyvinyl chloride (PVC) gel layer with an elastic modulus as low as a few kilopascals and a thickness of a few millimeters to the inner wall of a cavity-type sound-absorbing metamaterial structure significantly improved the absorption performance of the composite structure in low-frequency broadband ranges. The sound absorption enhancement mechanism differed from those proposed in previous research. On the one hand, the soft PVC gel layer acted as a soft acoustic boundary, substantially reducing the sound speed and reflection and producing considerable elastic strain energy at the interface between two different media to improve the sound absorption performance. On the other hand, this PVC gel layer displayed extremely low stiffness and high damping, producing an abundance of plasmon-like resonance modes in low-frequency broadband ranges, achieving a resonance absorption effect. Since this sound absorption enhancement method did not require an increase in the external dimensions or a change in the structural parameters of the original absorber and achieved robust enhancement in a wide frequency band, it displayed potential application value in various engineering fields.