Making the World a Lot Quieter

BU engineers have developed an “acoustic metamaterial” that can cancel 94 percent of sounds. The mathematically designed, 3D-printed acoustic metamaterial is shaped in such a way that it sends incoming sounds back to where they came from, Ghaffarivardavagh and Zhang say. Inside the outer ring, a helical pattern interferes with sounds, blocking them from transmitting through the open center while preserving air’s ability to flow through. Photo by Cydney Scott City life is so noisy, you have to find a way to create quiet moments, they say. That got them dreaming up a sound baffle that wasn’t a barrier at all, but instead an open conduit. Such a feat could only be possible by developing a material with unusual and unnatural properties (known as a metamaterial), in this case with the ability to exert an isolated influence on sounds—an acoustic metamaterial.