Tag Archive for 'Fabric'

The new smart material is activated by both heat and electricity, making it the first ever to respond to two different stimuli. Image credit: Xu et al., doi: 10.1002/smll.202207900.

Scientists Develop Multi-Stimuli-Responsive Smart Fabric

Apr 25, 2023 by News Staff

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed a new smart material with a dual-response feature, that is, shape-memory and color-changing. The...

Yan et al. designed an acoustic fabric, woven with a fiber that is designed from a piezoelectric material that produces an electrical signal when bent or mechanically deformed: (a) the tympanic membrane is a four-layer construct composed of circumferentially and radially oriented high-modulus collagen fibers, which are key for sound conduction; the tympanic membrane motion is ultimately transmitted to the cochlea through the ossicular chain, wherein short cilia fibers convert pressure waves into electrical signals (ionic), which are picked up by the nervous system; (b) in the acoustic fabric, high-modulus Twaron yarns and cotton yarns are oriented at right angles, mimicking the construction of the tympanic membrane; this construction converts faint audible frequency sound pressure waves into low-order mechanical vibration modes; within that same medium, a single strand of piezoelectric elastomeric fiber transducer is woven, leading to a synergistically coupled fabric, where sound transduction is a collective effect; this results in a fabric capable of operating as a sensitive microphone that detects weak sound signals (for example, human speech) as low as 10-7 atm. Image credit: Yan et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04476-9.

Newly-Developed ‘Acoustic Fabric’ Converts Sounds into Electrical Signals

Mar 18, 2022 by News Staff

Fabrics, by virtue of their composition and structure, have traditionally been used as acoustic absorbers. Inspired by the auditory system, a team of engineers...