Acoustic metamaterials for sound absorption and insulation in buildings

Despite the emergence of acoustic metamaterials with superior sound absorption and transmission loss, their adoption for building sound insulation has been limited. Sound insulation design in buildings is still informed by the acoustic performance of conventional materials, where the mass law contradicts light weighting when it comes to acoustic design. In any case buildings close to noisy environments such as motorways, railway lines and airports still suffer from significant low frequency noise pollution. Although the limited working bandwidth of acoustic metamaterials is a major issue limiting its application, combining meta-units that interact at various frequencies alongside multi-layer conventional…