PhononicVibes
The increased demand for transportation (by cars and rails), especially in urban areas, has significant implications in terms of increased vibration, causing:
- structural damage to buildings and cultural heritage;
- increased noises and relative lowering of the quality of life in the living environment.
To address the problem, a group of researchers from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering who developed Phononic Vibes: a new technology able to limit the propagation of vibrations, both elastic and acoustic, generated by traffic, machinery and industrial plants.
“The effectiveness of Phononic Vibes is obtained thanks to specific periodic structures capable of controlling the propagation of waves, guaranteeing a three-dimensional isolation“, says Luca D’Alessandro, one of the inventors of the two patents that protect the technology.
The periodic structures are made of materials commonly used in civil and mechanical engineering fields, such as steel and concrete, and organized in modules that can be placed side by side to create insulating barriers. These structures find an effective application in civil and industrial contexts. Examples of application are the control of vibrations originating from urban and interurban rail traffic, industrial machinery and construction sites.
Alternatively, the module device can be made of other materials (eg. plastic), and in different sizes, to be adapted also in other contexts.
The advantage of Phononic Vibes is both from a technical and an economic point of view: the proposed solution allows a higher reduction of vibrations if compared with the technologies currently available on the market at a lower cost.