Abstract
An acoustic metamaterial is a kind of material that is artificially designed in such a way that it can manipulate, control and direct sound waves. To date, various designs for acoustic metamaterials in the imaging applications have been proposed. However, these designs are generally simple due to the restriction from conventional manufacturing methods. By taking advantage of the additive manufacturing (AM) techniques, many complex acoustic metamaterials could be realized. However, the research on the complex structures for imaging applications has been very limited. In this paper, various 3D printable holey structured metamaterials with only one aperture are proposed, and the application possibility for sub-wavelength acoustic imaging in the audible frequency range is investigated. By using numerical simulation method, the effect of transmission properties of incident evanescent waves is analyzed to see whether these waves can completely transmit through the metamaterial. The phenomenon of Fabry-Perot resonances (FPR) that occur inside the hole for five different aperture shapes which are air-filled is studied, and the possibility of operating in a broadband resonance condition for the five designs are analyzed. These results can also be used to obtain valuable information for realizing a broadband acoustic hyperlens, which is an emerging application of 3D printable acoustic metamaterials.