Modeling a labyrinthine acoustic metamaterial through an inertia-augmented relaxed micromorphic approach

Abstract

We present an inertia-augmented relaxed micromorphic model that enriches the relaxed micromorphic model previously introduced by the authors via a term Curl P⋅ in the kinetic energy density. This enriched model allows us to obtain a good overall fitting of the dispersion curves while introducing the new possibility of describing modes with negative group velocity that are known to trigger negative refraction effects. The inertia-augmented model also allows for more freedom on the values of the asymptotes corresponding to the cut-offs. In the previous version of the relaxed micromorphic model, the asymptote of one curve (pressure or shear) is always bounded by the cut-off of the following curve of the same type. This constraint does not hold anymore in the enhanced version of the model. While the obtained curves’ fitting is of good quality overall, a perfect quantitative agreement must still be reached for very small wavelengths that are close to the size of the unit cell.