# Multifunctional Composites for Elastic and Electromagnetic Wave Propagation

## TL;DR

This paper develops cross-property relations linking elastic and electromagnetic wave properties in composites, enabling the design of multifunctional materials with tailored wave transmission and attenuation characteristics across a broad wavelength range.

## Contribution

It introduces accurate formulas for effective wave properties in disordered microstructures, extending beyond long-wavelength limits, and demonstrates their application to hyperuniform composites for multifunctional design.

## Key findings

- Disordered hyperuniform composites can act as low-pass filters for waves.
- The formulas apply to a wide range of wavelengths, beyond traditional limits.
- Design examples include heat sinks and vibration-damping structures.

## Abstract

Composites are ideally suited to achieve desirable multifunctional effective properties since the best properties of different materials can be judiciously combined with designed microstructures. Here we establish cross-property relations for two-phase composite media that link effective elastic and electromagnetic wave characteristics to one another, including the respective effective wave speeds and attenuation coefficients, which facilitate multifunctional material design. This is achieved by deriving accurate formulas for the effective electromagnetic and elastodynamic properties that depend on the wavelengths of the incident waves and the microstructure via the spectral density. Our formulas enable us to explore the wave characteristics of a broad class of disordered microstructures because they apply, unlike conventional formulas, for a wide range of incident wavelengths, i.e., well beyond the long-wavelength regime. This capability enables us to study the dynamic properties of exotic disordered ``hyperuniform'' composites that can have advantages over crystalline ones, such as nearly optimal, direction-independent properties and robustness against defects. We specifically show that disordered ``stealthy'' hyperuniform microstructures exhibit novel wave characteristics, e.g., low-pass filters that transmit waves ``isotropically'' up to a finite wavenumber. Our cross-property relations for the effective wave characteristics can be applied to design multifunctional composites via inverse techniques. Design examples include structural components that require high stiffness and electromagnetic absorption, heat-sinks for CPUs, and sound-absorbing housings for motors that have to efficiently emit thermal radiation and suppress mechanical vibrations, and nondestructive evaluation of the elastic moduli of materials from the effective dielectric response.