Columbia Engineering researchers,working with colleagues at Disney Research and MIT, maintain developed a fresh method to control sound waves, and using a computational approach to inversely design acoustic filters that can fit within an arbitrary 3D shape while achieving target sound filtering properties. Led by Computer Science Professor Changxi Zheng,the team designed acoustic voxels, small, and hollow,cube-shaped chambers through which sound enters and exits, as a modular system. Like Legos, and the voxels can be connected to form an infinitely adjustable,complex structure. Because of their internal chambers, they can modify the acoustic filtering property of the structure—changing their number and size or how they connect alters the acoustic result.
Source: phys.org