Benjamin Beck

Tel: +1 (757) 864-3605Benjamin Beck bg
Email:  benjamin.beck@nianet.org

Research Interests

  • Structural acoustics
  • Acoustic metamaterials
  • Active shunt damping

Education

  • Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2012
  • B.S., Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007

Current Research

  • Metamaterial Acoustic Liner: The aim of this research is to utilize the advanced and configurable properties of acoustic metamaterials to reduce the noise generated by turbofan aircraft engines. Acoustic metamaterials utilize sub-wavelength resonant inclusions to generate frequency bands where no energy is propagated through the material. By using small, periodic resonators on a sidewall of a turbofan engine, the low frequency noise can be significantly attenuated. Through proper design of the resonator characteristics, the bandwidth of control can be tuned to a specific engine and blade design.
  • Increased shunt damping with Acoustic Black Holes: Negative capacitance shunt damping is an effective broadband method for attenuating flexural vibration. However, proper selection of the location of the piezoelectric patches on a structure to maximize reduction has been an ongoing question in the field. Acoustic black holes are a recently developed concept to reduce vibrations on thin vibrating structures. By engineering the geometric or material properties of these thin structures, it is possible to minimize the reflected wave by gradually reducing the wave speed. However, the flexural wave speed cannot be reduced to zero on a realized structure. Therefore, when acoustic black holes are implemented, some of the incident wave energy is reflected because the wave speed must be truncated. Similarly due to the reduction in wave speed, the transverse velocity significantly increases within the acoustic black hole. It is therefore possible to add piezoelectric transducers to acoustic black hole regions on a structure to utilize negative capacitance shunt damping to address both of these issues. Consequently, the transducers are placed in the locations where the greatest control can be made and the reflected waves can be attenuated. The combination of negative capacitance shunt damping with acoustic black holes shows increased suppression of vibration over shunt damping alone.

Recent journal publications

  • Benjamin S. Beck, Kenneth A. Cunefare and Manuel Collet, “Response-based Tuning of a Negative Capacitance Shunt for Vibration Control”, accepted to Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, September 2013.
  • Benjamin S. Beck, Kenneth A. Cunefare and Manuel Collet, “The power output and efficiency of a negative capacitance shunt for vibration control of a flexural system,” Journal of Smart Materials and Structures, 22 (2013), 065009, June 2013
  • Filippo Casadei, Benjamin S. Beck, Massimo Ruzzene and Kenneth A. Cunefare, “Vibration Control of Plates through Hybrid Configurations of Periodic Piezoelectric Shunts” Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, 23 (10), May 2012
  • Benjamin S. Beck, Kenneth A. Cunefare, Massimo Ruzzene and Manuel Collet, “Experimental Analysis of a Cantilever Beam With a Shunted Piezoelectric Periodic Array,” Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, 22 (11), pp. 1177-1187

Referred Conference Articles

  • Benjamin S. Beck and Kenneth A. Cunefare, “Improved negative capacitance shunt damping with the use of acoustic black holes,” submitted to the Proceedings of SPIE, Smart Materials and Structures, March 2014, San Diego, CA.
  • Flaviano Tateo, Manuel Collet, Benjamin S. Beck and Kenneth A. Cunefare, “Vibration control of plates through a periodic array of shunted piezoelectric patches with negative capacitance circuits,” submitted to the Proceedings of SPIE, Smart Materials and Structures, March 2014, San Diego, CA.
  • Benjamin S. Beck and Noah H. Schiller, “Experimental comparison of two active vibration control approaches: velocity feedback and negative capacitance shunt damping,” Proceedings of Noise-Con 2013, August 26-28, 2013, Denver, CO.
  • Noah H. Schiller, Benjamin S. Beck, and Adam Slagle, “Numerical study of sound transmission through a thin partition lined with slow acoustic treatment,” Proceedings of Noise-Con 2013, August 26-28, 2013, Denver, CO.
  • Benjamin S. Beck, Kenneth A. Cunefare and Manuel Collet, “Power output and dissipation of a negative capacitance shunt coupled to piezoelectric transducers for vibration control,” Proceedings of the ASME Conference on Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems, 2011, Scottsdale, AZ.
  • Benjamin S. Beck, Kenneth A. Cunefare, Manuel Collet and Massimo Ruzzene, “Active Vibration Control of a Stiffened Panel through Application of Negative Capacitance Shunts,” SPIE, Smart Materials and Structures vol. 7977, March 2011, San Diego, CA.

Benjamin S. Beck, Kenneth A. Cunefare, Manuel Collet and Massimo Ruzzene, “Periodic piezoelectric sensor-actuator array for vibration suppression on a beam,” SPIE, Smart Structures and Materials/NDE vol. 7643, March 2010, San Diego, CA.