A Novel Unit Cell for Low-Frequency Vibration Suppression Through Meta-Plates: Modeling, Optimization and Testing

Exceptional properties of emerging of unconventional metamaterials including phononic/sonic crystals such as bandgap frequency have made them pertinent in various applications. In this paper, a novel single-phase optimized unit cell is proposed via genetic algorithm interfaced with the FE method. The unit cell parameters are fine-tuned according to two different objective functions over the low-frequency range of 2[Formula: see text]kHz to achieve the widest and maximum bandgaps summation for the in-plane and out-of-plane modes. For the in-plane propagation, almost 1681[Formula: see text]Hz bandgaps summation and a wide 635[Formula: see text]Hz frequency bandgap are obtained. Besides, there have been 1311[Formula: see text]Hz and 368[Formula: see text]Hz bandgap for the other case. Then, the meta-plates acquired through the investigations with finite arrangements are computed numerically and experimentally to mitigate longitudinal and bending wave propagation. It is found that the structures have high-performance capability to suppress the low-frequency vibrations inside the specified area and can substantially attenuate the propagation of elastic waves.