Broadband acoustic absorption at low frequencies by slabs and clusters made of hard cylindrical rods.

Within the low-frequency limit, this work analyzes the viscous absorbing properties of circular clusters and semi-infinite slabs made of rigid scatterers embedded in a fluid, such as air or water. These structures are made of rigid scatterers distributed in a hexagonal lattice, and they are proposed as useful absorbing devices in the core of acoustic black holes or acoustic metasurfaces. It is demonstrated that in both types of structures, an optimum value of the filling fraction produces the maximum absorption in a given frequency band. To avoid heavy numerical simulations, the broadband absorbing power has been obtained using a homogenization theory providing not only the effective acoustic parameters (effective mass and effective sound speed) but also the decay coefficient due to viscosity. An enhancement of the broadband sound absorption can be obtained by using a refractive index gradient allowing an increase of the acoustic energy into the semi-infinite slabs. The theoretical predictions are well supported by numerical simulations based on the finite-element and boundary-element methods, respectively, for the semi-infinite slabs and clusters. These predictions have potential applications in the design of structures and metasurfaces with enhanced absorbing power at low frequencies. The analytical model is further supported by experiments made with a 3D-printed sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]