Living in the city can be rally great if you like nightlife
and having a million things to do for fun over the weekend. However, the same
lively city that gives you so much joy on the weekend can be the bane of your
existence with its noise on Monday morning when you’re trying to get a few
winks before you need to get up, do something about your hangover and find a
way to get through Monday and a hectic workday. Most people just shut their
windows in an effort to dim the sounds of the city but that just shuts out the air
as well which can be very suffocating for apartment dwellers.
And that is precisely the problem that Korean scientists Seong-Hyun
Lee and Sang-Hoon Kim have targeted with their new invention. Dubbed the ‘Air
Transparent Soundproof Window’, the new smart window basically is a whole new kind
of window that is designed to let air pass through it while actively blocking the
noise. The window comes with two transparent layers that are set around 40 mm
apart.
This space acts as something of a resonance chamber within
the acrylic double-glazed window that traps the sound coming in from the outside.
Each piece of the acrylic layer is also perforated with 50 mm holes at
strategic locations that allow the window to pass the air freely while the sound gets trapped between the resonance chambers.
The acoustic soundproofing could be a real god sent for
apartment dwellers living near streets that experience frequent traffic jams. That
being said, it could also be used for cabins located above noisy factory floors
or hotel/apartment building lobbies located at street level.
