Tungsten Carbide Used for Blocking High-Pitched Sounds

A new filter made from tungsten carbide beads for blocking high-pitched sounds has been proposed by Physicists recently, as there is a fair amount of ultrasonic substances around us. In warmer areas, the pest control system relies on ultrasonic emission to drive away insects. You have ultra-sonics from machinery, from drilling. Even lighting lamps emit high-frequency noise. There are unknown effects on your hearing and brain that can cause nausea, headaches, dizziness, hearing loss, and other symptoms.

A research report by Surajit Sen, a professor of physics at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Luís Paulo Silveira Machado, a professor of physics at the Federal University of Pará in Brazil states that materials made from tapered chains of spherical beads can help dampen sounds that lie at the upper limit of human hearing or more High range sound. Related research results have been published in Granular Matter.

Researchers have used computational modeling to explore the effects of various materials on the suppression of incoming sound at frequencies up to 20 kHz, which are high enough that only some people can hear these noises. Sen and Machado studied many materials, all made of spherical beads of different sizes and surrounded by plastic walls.

The best set-up they found consisted of tapered chains of beads made from a metal called tungsten carbide, alternating with beads made from a plastic called Delrin. In computer simulations, the system effectively filters high-frequency noise with different loudness, thereby greatly reducing these sounds.

Scientists haven't tested the material in the lab yet, but researchers believe that if the material works, the noise shield could be used on headphones or other devices that could suppress high-pitched sounds.

According to Machado, one of the advantages of this proposed device is that the configuration of the tungsten carbide bread is simple, the spherical beads are properly confined and positioned, this proposal allows a prototype of easy construction, with low cost and little maintenance. Besides, and the spherical bead configuration is scalable to expand and adapt to different sizes of equipment. The next step for scientists is to redirect the output signals, so to better dampen the high-pitched sounds.

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