Advances in thin-walled metastructures for vibration and noise control and their applications in aerospace engineering

Thin-walled structures are commonly found in aircraft. As advanced aircraft evolve to meet the demands of wide speed ranges, transmedium capabilities, and large sizes, the vibro-acoustic environments of thin-walled structures have become increasingly complex. Consequently, there is a pressing need for low-frequency, wide-band, and time-varying vibro-acoustic control. The rapid advancement of metastructures/metamaterials has opened new opportunities for breakthroughs in air-vehicle technologies. Thin-walled metastructures based on the local-resonance mechanism offer significant advantages in addressing the challenges of vibro-acoustic control of aircraft. This paper reviews the progress of passive and piezoelectric thin-walled metastructures, focusing on their vibration suppression and sound insulation capabilities, and provides a comparative analysis of their evolutionary process and technical features. It offers guidelines for designing thin-walled metastructures in advanced aircraft. First, the mechanisms of local-resonance bandgaps in both passive and piezoelectric thin-walled metastructures are explained, along with their sound-insulation mechanisms, which lays the theoretical foundation for introducing research progress of this area. Additionally, the research progress of thin-walled metastructures for vibration suppression and sound insulation is reviewed, with particular attention to nonlinear thin-walled metastructures. Subsequently, the applications of thin-walled metastructures in addressing vibro-acoustic control issues of air vehicles are discussed. Finally, this paper offers future outlooks for thin-walled metastructures in air vehicles, focusing on optimal design, intelligent tuning, multifunctional integration, adaptability to extreme environments and precision manufacturing.