Conventional loudspeakers are often heavy, require substantial design spaces and are hard to integrate into lightweight structures (e.g., panels). To overcome these drawbacks, this paper presents a novel extremely flat loudspeaker which uses dielectric elastomer actuators with natural rubber for the elastomeric layers and metal electrodes as transduction mechanism. To facilitate the deformation of the elastomer, the electrodes are perforated. The microscopic holes lead to a macroscopically compressible stack configuration despite the elastomer incompressibility. The design is developed and the materials are chosen to guarantee low mechanical and electrical losses and a high efficiency in the entire frequency range up to several kilohertz. The loudspeaker was designed, built and afterwards experimentally investigated and characterised. Laser measurements of the surface velocity were performed to find dynamic effects present at the diaphragm. To further characterise the device, a semi anechoic chamber as used. Sound pressure levels emitted by the device were recorded at different bias and alternating voltages to study their influence. The nonlinearity of the loudspeaker, which is inherent for this kind of actuators, was quantified considering the total harmonic distortion. Here, a dependence on the amplitude of the alternating voltage is observed. Further, the distortion decreases rapidly the higher the frequency is, which qualifies the loudspeaker concept to properly work at high frequencies. Transfer functions between supplied voltage and on-axis sound pressure were measured and showed in principle potential for high frequency application. Further, the behaviour of the diaphragm changing from rigid piston to resilient disk with respect to frequency for different configurations was observed. Additionally, the directivity of the loudspeaker was investigated at several frequencies, and was in accordance with previously found research outcomes. The results, especially in the high frequency range, prove the usability of this design concept for practical applications.

This work presents the development, simulation and experimental investigation of a demonstrator for active vibration isolation with dielectric elastomers (DEs). The electromechanical behavior of the developed DE stack actuator is first characterized experimentally and a suitable simulation model is parametrized accordingly. The potential of the actuator for active vibration isolation is shown in a specially designed single axis test rig. The influence of different control strategies on the transmission behavior from the excited base to the mass is studied. A special aspect of the control strategy is the compensation of the specific nonlinearities. The analysis proves the potential of DE actuators for active vibration isolation purposes. The presented broadband active isolation could enable the use of DEs in various technical fields of application.

Dielectric elastomer (DE) actuators could have great potential for innovative solutions in different applications due to their large deformation capabilities, low cost and lightweight nature. One of the main technical challenges in the development of DE actuators is to realize highly conductive, compliant electrodes that do not constrain the large strain of the elastomer material. Metal electrodes are normally not feasible due to their high stiffness, though their electrical properties are excellent. Therefore mostly powder or grease electrodes have been realized so far, yielding good results in the laboratory. However, for many applications in industrial use, stack actuators with compliant electrodes have some disadvantages regarding processing and durability. Additionally the inhomogeneous strain distribution along the stack due to boundary constraints leads to performance losses, especially for thin actuators. Therefore a new design approach with rigid, perforated metal electrodes is chosen. This stack actuator only contracts in one direction whereas all the other directions remain undeformed. To find an optimal electrode design, a numerical model is set up for a small cut-out element of the actuator and different physical effects are subsequently taken into account to match reality as closely as possible. Finally, a functional demonstrator is built and characterized experimentally. The studies show the great potential for elastomer actuators with perforated, rigid electrodes and also demonstrate the need for a careful design and the advantage of numerical optimization methods.

A theoretical and experimental framework for novel metamaterial with programmable damping properties is presented. This material system is able to switch between elastic-dominated and damping-dominated regimes with different overall stiffness under dynamic loading depending on the external stimulus. The unit cell combines an auxetic and a bellow-like layer separated by an interface through which the amount of media flow can be tuned depending on the lateral strain. A simplified analytical model is derived to analyse the programmable damping effect. The model is further extended with a fluid-dynamics approach to link the effective damping properties with geometrical parameters to aid with the practical design of the metamaterial. Afterward, experiments are conducted on a macroscopic level using laser-sintered unit cells to validate the functionality of the concept both with air and water as media within the unit cells. To conclude the work, initial results on microscopic-level unit cells fabricated by two-photon lithography are introduced to showcase the scalability of the concept. This work provides an experimentally validated theoretical framework for future investigations to design unit cells with programmable damping on different length scales for applications requiring tailored dynamic energy dissipation.

The presented work focuses on the experimental investigation of a vibroacoustic metamaterial integrated into a spinning circular saw blade. Vibroacoustic metamaterials are a novel technology for broadband vibration reduction. Built from an array of local resonators, a broadband vibration reduction characteristic in the frequency domain (a so-called stop band) can be achieved. A design of a vibroacoustic metamaterial suitable for integration into a circular saw blade is developed and a numerical stop band prediction is performed. The resonators of the vibroacoustic metamaterial are integrated into the saw blade with a water jet cutting machine to create slots, forming flaps that are free to oscillate. The structural dynamic behavior of the saw blade with integrated vibroacoustic metamaterial is experimentally investigated on a rotor dynamic test bench and compared to that of a standard saw blade. The saw blades are excited by an automatic impulse hammer and the resulting out-of-plane vibrations are measured with a laser vibrometer at two different radii. Measurements are conducted at different rotational speeds up to 1800 rpm. Up to rotational speeds of 1000 rpm a stop band characteristic in the frequency range of 1900–2500 Hz is observed.

Vibroacoustic metamaterials offer an approach for the targeted damping of unwanted structural vibrations and noise by integrating periodically arranged resonators into a matrix of bulk material. Fabrication using the laser bed powder fusion process allows the targeted integration of bulk resonators and powder depots, leading to an extension of the designable damping properties. Herein, the adaptation of acoustic methods is focused on the characterization of the properties of metamaterial plates. The investigated vibroacoustic metamaterial plates are made of polyamide PA1.2, combining material and structural damping. The vibration behavior of the plates over a range of frequencies using acoustic impedance measurements in a custom‐built measurement tube is investigated and it is compared with structural dynamics experiments using an electrodynamic shaker. The measurements allow for the identification of stop bands (frequency range with high damping) and influencing factors such as metamaterial design, mass, powder amountand surface on the frequency‐dependent damping properties. The adapted technique investigated in this work provides an experimental platform to characterize the complex interplay of acoustic metamaterial design and holds promise for scaling up metamaterial technology for industrial applications due to its simplicity, small space requirement, and low cost.