Acoustic bandpass filters employing shaped resonators

This work deals with acoustic bandpass filters realized by shaped waveguide-elements inserted between two parts of an acoustic transmission line with generally different characteristic impedance. It is shown that the formation of a wide passband is connected with the eigenfrequency spectrum of the filter element which acts as an acoustic resonator and that the required filter shape substantially depends on whether the filter characteristic impedance is higher or lower than the characteristic impedance of the waveguide. It is further shown that this class of filters can be realized even without the need of different characteristic impedance. A heuristic technique is proposed to design filter shapes with required transmission properties; it is employed for optimization of low-frequency bandpass filters as well as for design of bandpass filters with wide passband surrounded by wide stopbands as it is typical for phononic crystals, however, in this case the arrangement is much simpler as it consists of only one simple-shaped homogeneous element.