Phase-cancellation of velocity oscillations in a flow duct using a slow-sound metamaterial

Self-sustained acoustic oscillations in industrial systems with mean flow can cause unwanted vibrations or noise pollution. Acoustic metamaterials can be engineered and integrated in such systems to prevent these limit cycles. In this study, an acoustic metamaterial is proposed for decreasing the acoustic admittance at the outlet of a contraction in a pipe. It can reduce velocity oscillations by more than 50%, without requiring an enlargement of the pipe or increasing the static resistance to the mean flow significantly. The acoustic metamaterial consists of an array of slow-sound and regular channels, which form a contraction in a pipe. The slow-sound effect shifts the resonances of the respective slow-sound channels. For the frequency of interest, the velocity oscillations of these two types of channels are out of phase, which reduces the spatially averaged velocity oscillations at the outlet of the contraction and therefore decreases its acoustic admittance. The effect is demonstrated experimentally, using impedance measurements and particle image velocimetry. A key achievement of this work is the demonstration of a device that is nearly lossless for the mean (steady) flow, i.e. having a low pressure drop, while being very stiff for the acoustic (oscillating) flow at its nominal working frequency, i.e. low admittance, which was so far a difficult challenge to address.