Acoustic metamaterials achieve the function of absorbing sound through equivalent negative parameters and bandgaps. Sound absorption is closely related to structural design. How to effectively control acoustic metamaterials’ acoustic performance through structural design is of vital importance. This paper summarizes the structural design of typical acoustic metamaterials of the membrane, plates, Helmholtz cavities, and coupling structures from the structural design perspective. Acoustic metamaterials of different structures have their suitable application scenarios. Here, we review the latest progress of acoustic metamaterials in which various structures were applied to broaden the bandgap. Furthermore, this review may provide guidance for the potential application of acoustic metamaterials in engineering practice.

Gas flow in soil plays a crucial role in terrestrial ecosystems, and numerical simulation of their movement needs to know their effective diffusion coefficients. How pore structure influences the effective diffusion coefficient has been studied intensively for dry porous media, but much remains unknown for unsaturated soils. Here, we employed the X-ray tomography technique at the pore scale to directly obtain the soil structures, the geometry of their pores and the water distribution under different water saturation levels were calculated using a morphological model. The results show that pore structures including porosity, interface area of gas–solid–water and pore diameter are closely related to water saturation. The increase of mean pore diameter with gas saturation can be fitted into a power law. We also investigated the impact of pore geometry and water saturation on the effective diffusion coefficients, which is independent of the molecular mass of gas after normalization. As the normalized effective Knudsen diffusion coefficient increases with average pore diameter following a power law, with the scaling factor related to pore geometry and the exponent is a constant, we explained and proved that the Knudsen diffusion coefficient increases with gas saturation, also following a power law.

Lattices were lightweight load-bearing and energy absorption structures, while the traditional designs with a periodic arrangement of single-type cells restricted the design domains. In this work, novel two-phase hybrid strategies based on different types and numbers of thin-plate cubic cells were proposed, and quasi-static compression experiments and finite element numerical simulations were performed to investigate their energy absorption characteristics and deformation mechanisms. The effects of the relative density and load direction on the compression responses were also explored. The results showed that SC-BCC lattices exhibited higher specific energy absorption than conventional lattices and other practical metamaterials, and changing the number and arrangement of cells of the hybrid structures achieved better mechanical properties in a specific loading direction. The specific energy absorption capacity of the hybrid plate-lattice can be up to 4.30 J/g in the present work, which is higher than the SEA capacity of conventional aluminum lattice and TPU truss lattice structure. These findings provided a novel structural design strategy for fabricating the plate-lattice architectures in conjunction with additive manufacturing.

To further improve the low-frequency broadband sound absorption capability of the underwater anechoic layer (UAL) on the surface of marine equipment, a novel sound absorption structure with cavities (NSSC) is designed by adding resonators and honeycombs to the traditional sound absorption structure with cavities (SSC). Based on the principle of shear dissipation, the original intention of the design is to allow more parts of the viscoelastic material to participate the dissipation of acoustic energy. The approximate multilayer sound absorption theoretical model based on the modified transfer matrix method is used to verify the accuracy of finite element calculations. In the frequency range of 1100 Hz–10,000 Hz, the sound absorption coefficient (α) of NSSC can reach 0.8. The effects of the presence and size of cylindrical oscillators and honeycomb structures on sound absorption are discussed in detail. The results show that expanding the effective sound absorption range of the damping area of the structure is the key to improve the wideband sound absorption effect. This design concept could guide the structural design of the UAL.

Micromotors show many advantages in practical applications, including small size, large push-to-weight ratio, and low power consumption. Micromotors have been widely used in a variety of applications, including cell manipulation, payload delivery, and removal of toxic components. Among them, bubble-driven micromotors have received great attention due to their large driving force and high speed. The driving force of the bubble-driven micromotor movement comes from the four stages of the life cycle of the bubble: nucleation, growth, slip, and ejection. At present, investigators are still unclear about the driving mechanism of the bubble-driven micromotors, the source of the driving force being still especially controversial. In response to this problem, this paper combines the mass transfer model, hydrodynamic theory, and numerical simulation to explain the driving force generated by the various stages of the life-cycle of the bubble. A mass transfer model was used to calculate the driving force of the motor contributed by the bubble nucleation and slip stage. Based on equilibrium of force and conservation of energy, a theoretical model of the driving force of the tubular micromotor in the growth and ejection stage of the bubble was established. The results show that the driving force contributed by the bubble in the nucleation and the slip stage is rather small. However, the stage of bubble growth and ejection provide most of the driving force. On further evaluating the effect of the bubble driving force on the motor speed, it was found that the growth stage plays a major role in the motion of the bubble-driven micromotor. The micromotor velocity based on the driving forces of the full life-cycle of bubbles agrees well with the experimental results.