Sound Insulation by Soft Acoustic Metamaterial

The purpose of this project is to design and develop a proto-type of sound insulation material applying the technology of acoustic metamaterial combined with energy absorption coating to enhance the sound insulation effect at low frequency, with reference to the recent novel discovery on the soft acoustic metamaterial that shreds light on developing thin material for reducing low frequency noise.

The common sound insulation material existing in the market are mainly in the form of porous or fibrous material. Although it is light-weighted and works well for insulating high frequency region, it is still becoming bulky for insulating low frequency, which make it unfavorable to equip on wearable or daily-use product for sound insulation of low frequency. Low frequency noise has a very strong penetration power, even a thick concrete wall fails to attenuate such noise effectively.

This project is a response to the rapid growth of environmental noise pollution due to increasing human activities as per the alarm from the World Health Organization (WHO).