When it comes to warfare on the seven seas and underneath the surface, you might not have the advantage of summoning the Kraken from the deep, but you have a powerful tool at your disposal to detect ships and submarines – sonar. How do you cloak your navy from the enemy? Painting them blue won’t cut it, but how about the idea of acoustic cloaking? There is a new design for sound cloaking that might just make it easier to hide ships from sonar, while helping us design better concert halls.
The new sound shield is comprised of a stack of plastic sheets which feature an intricate pattern of holes that are poked through them. Whenever sound waves encounter the structure, they will be re-rerouted to a specific path via the maze of holes and plastic plates. As a result, all those soundwaves will just keep going on instead of bouncing off the ship – making it seem as though the object isn’t even there. This means traditional sonar would be rendered useless against such material, now how about that?
This new structure can also see action in civilian life by coating walls and soundproofing rooms, in addition to enhancing the acoustics of concert halls.
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