Deep subwavelength sound absorption by a buckling plate resonator

Conventional sound-absorbing materials face great difficulties in achieving deep subwavelength broadband sound absorption due to the causal constraint on the minimum thickness. A buckling plate resonator is proposed to alleviate the causal constraint on the thickness of sound-absorbing materials. The resonator consists of a back cavity sealed by an elastic circular thin plate. When the plate is subjected to a uniform in-plane compressive force up to its critical load, it buckles and behaves as a negative stiffness spring. The positive stiffness of the back cavity is counteracted by the negative stiffness of the buckling plate, resulting in resonance absorption at the deep subwavelength scale. The sound absorption performance of the buckling plate resonator under different in-plane loads was measured in an impedance tube. Quasi-perfect sound absorption was observed in a buckling plate resonator with a thickness less than 1% of the wavelength corresponding to the resonance frequency. This work provides a solution for the design of ultra-thin broadband sound absorbers.