Tunable polymer-based sonic structures

摘要

Tunable polymer-based sonic structures (“TuPSS”) are made up of sonic structures and polymers. The TuPSS has three general requirements: a) The sonic structure is composed of one or materials engineered to behave as a lens, filter, cloak, or dampener; b) Stimulus sensitive polymer is incorporated into the sonic structure; and c) The actuation of the polymer tunes the acoustic behavior of the structure in a predictable manner. The tunable polymer-based sonic structures utilize stimuli-driven physical properties of the polymers in these acoustic structures to produce a stimulus driven, or tunable, sonic structure or device. The sonic structures actively modulate mechanical vibrations that propagate through the structures, but are passive in that they do not produce mechanical vibrations. The stimuli for the structures include electric, magnetic, electromagnetic, chemical, thermal, and shaking/orientation.

主权项

1. A tunable polymer-based sonic structure comprising:
a sonic structure engineered to be capable of passively affecting the propagation of sound waves; a polymer having acousto-elastic properties capable of manipulation through external stimuli, wherein the polymer is in contact with the sonic structure such that the polymer is capable of affecting the propagation of sound waves through the sonic structure; and a source of external stimuli for manipulation of the acousto-elastic properties of the polymer, wherein the sonic structure comprises a plurality of metal rods having stabilizing ends, wherein the polymer comprises poly (n-isopropylacrylamide) polymer hydrogel, wherein the polymer surrounds the plurality of metal rods and is contained within the stabilizing ends of the sonic structure, wherein the source of external stimuli is water having a variable temperature, and wherein the tunable polymer-based sonic structure is a temperature sensitive acoustic filter.