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Devesh Ojha,
Vivek Verma,
Anuradha Misra,
- Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Amity University, Lucknow, India Campus: Amity University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
- Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amity University, Lucknow, India Campus: Amity University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
- Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Amity University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
Abstract
Acoustic metamaterials for sound insulation and photonic/radiative-cooling metamaterials for passive thermal management have each matured separately for building-envelope retrofit, but existing studies address ventilation, acoustic damping and radiative thermal control in isolation, and no reported unit-cell architecture co-designs all three within a single shared structure. This gap persists because materials that are acoustic absorptive are generally dense and structurally opaque, whereas materials that are highly solar-reflective are conventionally applied to hard, non-absorptive surfaces a materials-level conflict that existing multifunctional metasurfaces have not resolved at building scale. This paper addresses that gap by proposing a single ventilated meta-panel unit cell that couples an array of subwavelength Helmholtz resonators (for low-frequency traffic and HVAC noise attenuation while remaining air-permeable) with an exterior spectrally selective multilayer coating (for high solar reflectance and high mid-infrared emissivity, enabling passive daytime radiative cooling), placing the coating on the resonator rim rather than in the acoustic cavity so that neither function is physically compromised by the other. Using a literature-parameterised lumped-element acoustic model and a representative multilayer photonic spectral model, we perform a computational feasibility analysis and benchmark the design against sealed, ventilated-only and acoustic-only reference configurations reported in the literature. The key finding is that the proposed hybrid panel achieves an average sound transmission loss of approximately 18 dB over 500–2000 Hz, covering the dominant band of urban traffic and mechanical noise, together with a net radiative cooling power of approximately 60 W/m² under standard solar loading performance that sits within the ranges separately reported for acoustic-only and photonic-only panels, but is delivered by one shared ventilated structure rather than by stacking two separate systems. A parametric sensitivity analysis over resonator quality factor and coating reflectance/emissivity shows that both performance metrics remain within practically useful bounds across the parameter ranges reported in the cited literature. The principal academic contribution is a design-level demonstration, grounded in physically motivated models rather than assumption, that acoustic and radiative-cooling co-design is not physically precluded within one unit cell a conclusion that directly answers the co-design gap repeatedly flagged in recent review literature. In practical terms, the design offers a concrete route to building envelope retrofit panels that combine noise mitigation and passive cooling without the added mass, cost and space of separate acoustic and thermal systems, with potential relevance to dense urban buildings exposed to both traffic noise and solar heat gain. We report fabrication routes, durability considerations, and a concrete experimental validation agenda; the results presented are computational feasibility screening, and physical prototyping and laboratory/field characterisation remain necessary before the design can be considered validated for deployment.
Keywords: Metamaterials; acoustic metamaterials; photonic metamaterials; passive daytime radiative cooling; Helmholtz resonator; spectrally selective coating; building envelope; multifunctional metasurface; urban heat island; noise mitigation
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International Journal of Energy and Thermal Applications
| Volume | 04 | |
| 02 | ||
| Received | 09/07/2026 | |
| Accepted | 30/07/2026 | |
| Published | 25/08/2026 | |
| Publication Time | 47 Days |