{"id":9774,"date":"2025-06-24T04:07:07","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T04:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/9774\/"},"modified":"2025-06-24T04:07:07","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T04:07:07","slug":"owls-silent-flight-inspires-new-noise-reduction-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/9774\/","title":{"rendered":"Owls’ silent flight inspires new noise reduction technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Owls'<\/p>\n

A new soundproofing material (fluffy white disk, right image) that mimics the structure of owl skin and feathers reduced the rumble of a car engine more than a traditional felt fiber soundproofing material (fluffy white disk, left image). Credit: ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (2025). DOI: 10.1021\/acsami.5c04691<\/p>\n

If you’ve seen an owl fly, you probably didn’t hear a thing. That’s because their skin and feathers dampen sound by absorbing high- and low-frequency flight noise.<\/p>\n

Inspired by this natural soundproofing, researchers publishing in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have developed<\/a> a two-layer aerogel that mimics the structures inside owl feathers and skin to mitigate sound pollution. This new material<\/a> could be used in cars and manufacturing facilities to reduce traffic and industrial noise.<\/p>\n

Noise pollution is more than a nuisance; excessive noise can cause hearing loss and can worsen health conditions such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. When eliminating the source of noise pollution isn’t feasible, soundproofing materials help dampen it. However, traditional materials<\/a> absorb either high-frequency sounds, like squealing brakes, or low-frequency sounds, like the deep rumbling from a car engine. This means engineers often layer multiple types of soundproofing materials to achieve full-spectrum noise control, which adds weight and bulk.<\/p>\n

To overcome this, Dingding Zong and colleagues turned to an unlikely acoustic expert: the owl. The owl uses its soft feathers and porous skin to remain whisper-quiet during flight. The researchers’ goal was to engineer a similarly versatile broadband sound absorber.<\/p>\n

The researchers froze droplets of hexane into a layer of soft material, using a technique called emulsion-templated freeze-reconstruction. Removing the frozen hexane revealed a honeycomb-like pattern in the material. They added a second layer with silicon nanofibers instead of hexane droplets to create a fibrous pattern.<\/p>\n

The resulting light, porous, two-layer aerogel mimics the structures in owl skin and feathers<\/a>: The bottom porous layer resembles the bird’s skin<\/a> with microscopic cavities that cancel out low-frequency noise; and the top feather-inspired layer, made of fluffy nanofibers, dampens high-frequency sounds.<\/p>\n

Notably, the researchers found that their owl-inspired aerogels can:<\/p>\n