Synergistic metasurface barrier for ventilated broadband acoustic insulation via topology optimization
Phys. Rev. Applied 25, 044051 – Published 20 April, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/rpqf-5sn2
Abstract
Ventilation metamaterials and metasurfaces have gained significant interest in recent years due to their excellent properties of passive sound insulation, while also allowing air to flow freely. However, previous designs based on Helmholtz or Fano-like resonances are limited by bandwidth, and empirical design approaches leave considerable room for optimization. The metasurface composed of square units, obtained through topology optimization based on a genetic algorithm, exhibits sound insulation properties. The agreement between experimental and numerical results demonstrates that the metasurface blocks over 90% of incident energy in the range of 447–2084 Hz, achieving a relative bandwidth of 1.6 at the subwavelength scale while maintaining a 20% ventilation rate. Such remarkable performance is attributed to the synergy of resonance and destructive interference. In addition, the Pareto front is calculated to identify optimal tradeoffs between ventilation efficiency and sound insulation bandwidth. Our design not only suppresses extreme transmission originating from the metasurface composed of square units for sound insulation but also provides optimized structures for different ventilation rates, paving a new path for effective noise reduction.
