The design of mechanical components in loudspeakers are mostly based on traditional materials and geometrical configuration. The project seeks to tailor the sound emission characteristics both in terms of spatial directivity of produced sound, but also temporal characteristics such as nonlinear distortion. This is achieved by utilizing the properties and advantages of acoustic metamaterials.
The hypothesis is, that the optimal physical designs and their material configuration can be created with gradient based techniques such as topology or shape optimization. The main part to be optimized is the loudspeaker diaphragm. For the optimization to work a coupled mechanical-acoustic FE software should be developed and relevant objective functions found.
The scope of this project is to design novel realisable loudspeaker components that can operate under un-ideal conditions.
The examiners agree that the PhD thesis is clearly written and well-structured. The topics included in the thesis are relevant, interesting and coherent and Daniel has shown excellent skills in applying methods and software tools to an advanced technical problem. Furthermore the work presented demonstrates very good competence in computational methods for physical problems and a high level of skill in the technical aspects involved.
Congratulations to Daniel on your achievement.