Thermally-triggered tunable vibration attenuation in 3D-printed mono-material lattice metamaterials

Phononic crystals, capable to tailor mechanical wave propagation and displaying omnidirectional band gaps, are vital for numerous potential applications such as wave filtering, waveguiding, acoustic cloaking, and energy harvesting. In raw materials, vibration mitigation depending on intrinsic damping feature usually cannot be adjusted easily and broad attenuation frequency ranges is still scarce in these materials. Here, we propose a novel approach and metamaterial design with the ability of thermally-triggered tunable vibration mitigation in multiple frequency ranges, which arise from the local resonance mechanism. The proposed method utilizes reversible Young’s Modulus-temperature relationship of glassy polymer and non-uniformity of steady temperature field in solid structures. Through numerical simulations and low amplitude transmission testing, we demonstrate that the proposed method and metamaterials can exhibit broad and multiple omnidirectional band gaps. The finding reported here provides a new routine to design phononic metamaterial systems with tunable band gaps, offering a wide range of potential applications in harsh environmental conditions and being extended to baseline lattices with other topologies.