In the article Blocking Sound with Holes, written by Charles Q. Choi, published in the December 2008 issue of Scientific American, it was reported that drilling holes in a wall can decrease the amount of ultrasonic sound that gets through.
Francisco Meseguer of the Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain and his team placed a series of 20 centimeter thick aluminum plates in water and discovered that plates with perforation could reduce the volume of incoming ultrasound waves by up to 10 decibels compared to ordinary plates. The sound waves generate acoustic waves on the surface of the plate that hinder the waves passing through the plate.
This discovery could potentially help to soundproof machines while still letting cool air through. Currently, the team is working on audible sound. Who knew that drilling holes in a wall could actually decrease the amount of sound that gets through? This will undoubtedly have an effect on soundproofing. This development could also be applied to more than buildings. This could also influence architecture, especially industrial architecture, in which lots of heavy machinery is running inside of one building.
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2 comments:
This is a very interesting phenomenon, I wonder what properties of sound wave cause this. Would the holes cause the sound waves to refract and break-up more, therefore transmitting sound less well because of the inconsistencies in the material they are traveling through? This seems likely considering the situation, but there could be others explanations of course. Did they test it the the air as well as in water?
I have read many of Charles Q. Choi's articles in Scientific American I find his articles to be very interesting, as this one is.
As far as Alex's comment is concerned, I think that the ultrasonic nature of the sound used would affect its properties... Perhaps the holes are "filled" with interference; this interference could block more sound then would the aluminum. This effect would not, it is thought, be large enough to change the sound by 10 decibels.
This is a really interesting effect. As more research is done, I would like to learn more about why this happens.
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