Metamaterial panel with arrays of piezoelectric patches connected to multi-resonant electrical shunts

This paper presents a simulation study on the feasibility of a smart metamaterial panel designed to reduce the flexural vibrations in wide frequency ranges. The system is composed by a thin aluminium plate with a dense two dimensional array of shunted piezoelectric patch transducers. The plate is exposed to a rain on the roof time and spatial stochastic excitation. The overall flex-ural response of the plate is derived in terms of the time averaged total flexural kinetic energy. The piezoelectric patch transducers are connected to multi-resonating shunts specifically designed to suppress flexural vibration of the plate over multiple frequency bands. The overall vibration control effect is obtained both via the regular arrangement of the patches on the panel and via the multi-resonating shunts, which are optimized to maximise the absorbed electrical power over tar-get frequency bands.