Modelling and simulation of acoustic metamaterials for architectural application

Abstract

Acoustic metamaterials are novel engineered materials with geometric features of subwavelength size that create highly exotic acoustic behaviors such as negative refractive indexes, perfect sound absorption and sound waveguiding. While these new materials hold much promise to be useful for the architectural engineering and construction sector, there has been little research done on the application of acoustic metamaterials for architectural application. The research presented in this paper investigates acoustic metamaterials for architectural acoustics and demonstrates how architects can leverage parametric design, digital fabrication, and computer performance simulation to develop new metamaterial designs tuned for customized acoustic performance. This paper proposes a new definition of 'metamaterials for architectural acoustic application' and provides a brief overview of the history and theory of acoustic metamaterials alongside a discussion of the relevance of such materials for implementation in architectural acoustic applications. A design and simulation workflow is presented that demonstrates the parametric design and iteration of metamaterial geometry, performance evaluation through computer simulation, and digital fabrication of functional prototypes. A set of well-performing metamaterial geometries are presented that can be used to design architectural acoustic surfaces.