Researchers Develop Framework for Turning Noise into Useable Energy

摘要

A team at the University of Buffalo has developed the mathematical structure that could lay the foundation for creating technologies for converting aircraft and road noise into useful power. Altering the shape of contact areas between equal-sized particles in a chain dramatically changes how energy propagates through the system, they theorize. "Under normal circumstances, when the particles are perfect spheres, exerting force on the first sphere in the chain causes energy to travel through the spheres as a compact bundle of energy between 3-5 particle diameters wide, at a rate set by Hertz's Law. By altering the shape of the surface area of each particle where it presses against the next, it is possible to change how the energy moves."