Acoustic Cloaks for Plates and Cylinders Beena Mary John

Rajagiri School of Engineering and Technology, Kakkanad, Kochi 682039

D. D. Ebenezer
Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory, Thrikkakara, Kochi 682021 Abstract: A method is presented to determine the properties of thin, lossy, homogeneous coatings that can acoustically cloak plates and cylinders. Flat panels and cylinders are often used as basic building blocks in mathematical models of submarines and are, therefore, of interest. The frequency-dependent sound speed in the coating required to reduce the broadband backscattered pressure to zero is determined by using analytical models. Numerical results indicate that materials with the required sound speed can be developed. The sensitivity of the reflection coefficient to the complex sound speed is also presented to illustrate the effect of variations in sound speed that will occur during production. Keywords: Echo, backscatter, multilayer, internal loss 1. Introduction Rendering a submarine invisible to interrogating acoustic waves would constitute a gigantic leap in stealth technology. An ideal acoustic cloak conceals a submarine by causing the total pressure field to be the same as that due to the incident field alone; without echoes or shadows [1]. Cai [2] presents multilayer elastic cloaks for cylinders that, unlike the cloak in Ref. 1, do not have any material singularity, but perform very well in the low frequency region where there are no resonances. Cheng et al [3] present a cloak that is effective against waves with different wave-front shapes. In this paper, a method is presented to design broadband acoustic cloaks for underwater plates and cylinders such that the reflected and backscattered pressures, respectively, are zero. Flat panels and cylinders are often used as basic building blocks in mathematical models of submarines and are, therefore, of interest. The method is used to determine the frequency-dependent properties of a homogeneous cloak for a flat plate and it is likely that such materials can be developed. The effect of a small difference between the actual and ideal material properties on the effectiveness of the cloak is also studied. A model of a cylinder coated with a thin lossy layer is used to show that coatings without losses can amplify echoes whereas designed ones can reduce the backscattered pressure to zero.

Page 1 of 6

2.

Acoustic Cloaks for Plates Consider an infinite, flat, metal plate with a lossy homogeneous coating immersed in

infinite fluid as shown in Fig. 1. The objective is to determine the speed of sound in the coating that would make the reflected pressure zero when a broadband wave is normally incident. The thickness and density of the metal plate and the speed of sound in it, and the thickness and density of the coating are known. Losses in the coating are modelled using complex Lames coefficients and the speed of sound is therefore complex. The pressures due to the incident,
Coating

reflected, and transmitted waves are expressed

Plate

as

Pi = A1e j (t k1x ) ,

Pr = B1e j (t + k1x ) ,

and

Pt = A4 e j (t k1x ) respectively, where k 1 = / c1

Fig.1. An infinite coated plate; and incident, reflected, and transmitted plane acoustic waves. is the acoustic wave number in water, is the angular frequency, c1 is the speed of sound in water, and t denotes time. The normal stresses in the coating and the metal plate are expressed as T2 = A2 e j (t k 2 x ) + B2 e j (t + k 2 x ) and
T3 = A3 e j (t k3 x ) + B3 e j (t + k3 x ) ,

respectively, where k2 = / c2 and k3 = / c3 . The continuity

conditions for stress and particle velocity at the first, second, and third interfaces are used to determine the coefficients A2 , A3 , B2 , B3 , and A4 when A1 is known. Plates with several coatings are analyzed using a transfer matrix approach [4]. The reflection coefficient R = B1 / A1 is a function of the density and the sound speed in each layer and the thicknesses of the metal and coating layers. It is assumed that all these properties except the speed of sound in the coating, c 2 , are known. The complex value of c 2 at which R becomes zero is determined. The method used to find c 2 is presented in a later section. 3. Acoustic Cloaks for Cylinders Consider the solid infinite circular cylinder shown in Fig. 2. It has a thin coating. A plane acoustic wave travelling along the direction perpendicular to the axis of the cylinder is incident on it. The backscattered acoustic wave is of interest and is determined using a model of a multilayer cylinder [5]. The effect of the material properties of the coating on the backscattered pressure is studied. The analysis can be extended to study coated thin cylindrical shells.

Page 2 of 6

The pressure in the incident wave is expressed in cylindrical coordinates using Bessel functions of the first kind [6]. The solutions to the equations of motion of the solid cylinder and the coating are determined using the method of separation of variables [7]. In the azimuthal direction, a Fourier Fig. 2. A solid elastic cylinder with a thin acoustic coating. A plane wave travelling along the x axis is incident on it. series expansion with orthogonal terms is used. In the radial direction, Bessel functions

are used. The scattered acoustic pressure is also expressed in terms of a Fourier-Bessel series. Each orthogonal component has two coefficients in the solid cylinder, four coefficients in the coating, and one coefficient in water. The seven coefficients in the solutions are determined using seven continuity conditions at the interfaces: at the water-coating interface, the normal stress is equal to the pressure, the shear stress on the surface of the coating is zero, and the radial displacement is continuous; at the coating-cylinder interface, the normal and shear stresses, and radial and tangential displacements are continuous. The coefficients can be used to determine the pressure in any direction. However, here, only the back-scattered pressure is computed because this is of interest when a monostatic sonar interrogates the object. Losses in the coating are modelled using complex Lames coefficients in this case also. 4. Results and discussion Numerical results are presented to illustrate cloaks that render plates and cylinders invisible to monostatic sonars. Results are presented for a steel plate of thickness 6 mm, density 7700 kg/m3, Youngs modulus 195 GPa, and Poisson ratio 0.3. The thickness of the coating is 40 mm for the plate and the density of the coating is 1200 kg/m3. The reflection coefficient, at 10 kHz, for a coated flat plate is shown in Fig. 3 as a function of the real and imaginary parts of the speed of sound in the coating. It is seen that R has several local minima that are not nearly zero. However, it is seen from Fig. 3 that R is approximately zero at the global minimum where c 2 = 710+j100 m/s. R does not change very rapidly in this neighborhood indicating that small deviations from the ideal c2 will not result in a large change in R . The change is much more rapid at local minima. After visually finding the approximate global minimum using the 3D plot, the search for the ideal sound speed is continued by using 2D plots. This is easier than a fully automatic search.
Page 3 of 6

Reflection Coefficient

0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 600

650

700

Re(C2)

750

800

850

R as a function of real and Fig. 4. Reflection coefficient at 10 kHz. Five Fig. 3. imaginary parts of c 2 at 10 kHz. lines at integer values of Im( c 2 ) ranging from 97 to 101 are shown.

150
0.1

Table I. Ideal sound speed in an acoustic cloak for a steel plate. Ideal sound speed (m/s) Re (c) 158 305.5 450 584.5 710 Im (c) 0.75 8.7 28.7 60 99 Youngs Modulus (MPa) 1.75 +0.01j 6.53+0.37j 14.14+1.81j 23.7+4.92j 34.65+9.85j

0.2

Im (c2)

0.02 0.05

100

Frequency (kHz)

2
0.3 0.3

4
50 600 650 750 700 Re (c2) 800 850

6 8 10

Fig. 5. Contour plot of the amplitude of the reflection coefficient at 10 kHz. Contour lines are shown at R = 0.02, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3.

2D graphs are shown in Fig. 4. Each line is for a constant integer value of Im(c2 ) ranging from 97 to 101. The five lines are nearly the same and cannot be distinguished. The ideal speed of sound for the cloak is the one corresponding to R =0. If such a sound speed does not exist, the sound speed at which R is minimum is the ideal sound speed. The sensitivity of R to the sound speed, in the neighborhood of the ideal sound speed, is illustrated using a contour plot in Fig. 5. Contour lines are shown for R = 0.02, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3. It is seen that R < 0.1 (-20 dB) in a region that is approximately elliptical. This indicates that the cloak will be effective even if the actual sound speed is a little different from the ideal sound speed either due to inability to achieve the ideal sound speed or due to variation during production. The feasibility of using an acoustic cloak to conceal a cylinder at high normalized frequencies is illustrated by presenting results for rigid and Titanium cylinders of radius 1 m.
Page 4 of 6

800 700 600 500 Reflection Coefficient = 0 Reflection Coefficient = 0.1 Reflection Coefficient = 0.2

100 Reflection Coefficient = 0 Reflection Coefficient = 0.1 Reflection Coefficient = 0.2

80

Re(C2)

400 300 200 100 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Im(C2)

60

40

20

0 1

10

Frequency(kHz)

Frequency(kHz)

Fig. 6. Re(c2) corresponding to R = 0, 0.1 and Fig. 7. Im(c2) corresponding to R = 0, 0.1 0.2. Im(c2) = ideal value at each frequency. and 0.2. Re(c2) = ideal value at each frequency. The thickness of the coating is 50 mm. The Youngs modulus, Poissons ratio, and density of Ti are 110 GPa, 0.3, and 4533 kg/m3, respectively. The Youngs modulus, Poissons ratio, and density of the rubber coating are 0.11(1-j0.1) GN/m2, 0.48(1-j0.1), and 910 kg/m3, respectively. The pressure backscattered by a rigid cylinder, at a distance of 500 m from the cylinder, is shown in Fig. 8 for three cases: without coating, coated with lossless layer, and coated with lossy layer. At large distances from the cylinder, the pressure varies inversely with square root of radial distance. It is seen that the backscattered pressure is nearly independent of frequency if frequency > 1 kHz. Using a coating without losses causes rapid oscillations and higher backscattered pressure in several narrow frequency bands. However, there are no oscillations in the 3.5 8.5 kHz band and the backscattered pressure is very nearly the same as that from the rigid cylinder. When a layer with loss is used and frequency > 500 Hz, the backscattered pressure is less than that when there is no coating. There are no oscillations at frequency > 3 kHz. There is a minimum at about 7.2 kHz and the coating is a cloak at this frequency. The backscattered pressure is shown in Fig. 9 for a Ti cylinder. At high frequencies, the pressure oscillates about the pressure scattered by a rigid cylinder. In contrast to the rigid
0.06
Rigid cylinder without coating

0.06
Rigid cylinder with rubber coating(losses not included) Rigid cylinder with rubber coating(losses included)

Backscattered pressure (Pa)

0.04

Backscattered pressure (Pa)

0.05

0.05 0.04

Ti cylinder without coating Ti cylinder with coating (losses not included) Ti cylinder with coating (losses included)

0.03 0.02 0.01

0.03 0.02 0.01

0 0

10

Frequency(kHz)

0 0

10

Frequency(kHz)

Fig. 8. Magnitude of pressure backscattered Fig. 9. Magnitude of pressure backscattered by a rigid cylinder of radius 1 m. by a titanium cylinder of radius 1 m
Page 5 of 6

cylinder case, there are several oscillations even at high frequencies. A thin coating without loss does not significantly affect the backscattered pressure. However, when there is loss in the coating, oscillations are still present but the pressure is considerably reduced. The coating is nearly an ideal cloak at approximately 7 kHz. It is feasible to compute the frequency-dependent characteristics of the ideal coating by using the method used for plates. 5. Conclusions Analytical models are used to show that it is feasible to acoustically cloak plates and cylinders such that the backscattered pressure is zero. Models of multilayered flat plates and cylinders with lossy coatings, based on exact equations of motion, are used to compute the backscattered pressure at high normalized frequencies. It is shown that the frequencydependent complex sound speed in the coating can be suitably designed to achieve zero reflection. The effect of a small difference between the ideal and actual sound speed on the reflected pressure is also presented to assist in setting production tolerance. Acknowledgement Facilities to do the work provided by Director, NPOL are gratefully acknowledged. References 1. S. A. Cummer and D. Schurig, One path to acoustic cloaking, New Journal of Physics 9, pp 1-8 (2007). 2. L.-W. Cai, Optimizing imperfect cloaks to perfection, J. Acoustical Soc. America.132, 2923- 2931 (2012) 3. Y. Cheng, F. Yang, J. Y. Xu, and X. J. Liu, A multi layered structured acoustic cloak with homogeneous isotropic materials, Applied Phy. Let. 92, 151913 (2008). 4. D. D. Ebenezer and Pushpa Abraham, Effect of multilayer baffles and domes on hydrophone response, J. Acoustical Soc. America. 99, 1883-1893 (1996). 5. J. S. Sastry and M. L. Munjal, Response of a multi-layered infinite cylinder to twodimensional pressure excitation by means of transfer matrices, J. Sound and Vibration, 209, 123-142 (1998). 6. P. M. Morse and K. U. Ingard, Theoretical Acoustics (McGraw-Hill, New York,1968). 7. M. C. Junger and D. Feit, Sound, Structures, and their Interaction, (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1972). 8. L. E. Kinsler, A. R. Frey, A. B. Coppens and J. V. Sanders, Fundamentals of Acoustics (John Willey & Sons,1972), 4th ed.
Page 6 of 6