Omnidirectional acoustic cloaking against airborne sound realized by a locally resonant sonic material

We report that a locally resonant sonic material realizes omnidirectional acoustic invisibility in air. To achieve acoustic cloaking in the low-frequency regime, we axisymmetrically placed elastic rods comprised of silicone rubber and lead around a cloaked object. The radii of the rods are designed to minimize their total scattering cross section for a given frequency. The optimization is performed using an algorithm incorporating multiple scattering theory and gradient-based nonlinear programming. We numerically confirmed that the designed cloaking device suppressed the scattering cross section by almost 92% for all incident directions at the target frequency.

Automated summary

This study reports omnidirectional acoustic invisibility in air achieved by a locally resonant sonic material. By axisymmetrically placing elastic rods made of silicone rubber and lead around a cloaked object, acoustic cloaking in the low-frequency range is achieved. The optimization algorithm incorporating multiple scattering theory and gradient-based nonlinear programming confirms that the designed cloaking device suppresses the scattering cross section by almost 92% at the target frequency.