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New Fiber Can Measure Water Flow

2010/7/21 11:27:00 29

The researchers showed the sound waves that they could produce and detect.

fibre

For hundreds of years,
人造纤维”指的就是衣服和绳子的原材料，到了信息时代，纤维的意义则变成了通信网络中携带数据的玻璃细丝。但是，对于麻省理工学院电子研究实验室副教授尤尔·芬克来说，纺织品或光纤中所使用的这些纤维则过于被动。在过去的十年中，他的实验室一直致力于开发具有更先进性能的纤维，以使纤维织物能与其周围环境产生互动。

In a recent issue of the journal Nature and materials, Fink and his collaborators announced a landmark new functional fiber: a fiber that detects and produces sound.

The application of this fiber includes: it can be made into clothes for microphone, can capture speech or monitor body function, or make a fine single filament that can measure blood flow or pressure in capillaries.

new

fibre

The core is plastic with asymmetric molecules.

Ordinary

Optical fiber

It is made from prefabricated products, which is a large cylindrical single material that can be heated, drawn and cooled.

In contrast, the fiber developed by the Fink laboratory is to arrange several different materials carefully to keep it intact in the heating and stretching process.

The core of the new acoustic fiber is a plastic commonly used in microphones.

The fluorine content in this plastic enables researchers to ensure that their molecules are in an unbalanced state, that is, fluorine and hydrogen atoms are on one side, even during heating and stretching.

The asymmetry of this molecule causes plastic to have "piezoelectricity", which means that when an electric field is applied to it, it will change its shape.

In traditional piezoelectric microphones, the electric field is produced by metal electrodes.

However, in a fiber microphone, the stretching process causes metal electrodes to lose their shape.

Therefore, researchers substituted graphite conductive plastics.

Conductive plastics will produce a dense liquid when heated, thus maintaining higher viscosity than metal electrodes.

This not only prevents the mixing of materials, but also the most critical. It also makes the fibers have a normal thickness.

After the fibers are stretched, the researchers need to arrange all the piezoelectric molecules in the same direction.

At this point, a strong electric field (20 times stronger than the lightning induced lightning field) is needed.

Because everywhere in the fiber is very narrow, it produces a tiny lightning ball that destroys the surrounding matter.

Vocalization

fibre

Wide range of uses

Although this delicate balance is needed in the manufacturing process, researchers are able to produce this functional fiber in the laboratory.

If they are connected to a power source and applied to a sinusoidal current (very stable alternating current), these fibers will vibrate.

If it vibrates at the audio frequency and near its ears, it can hear different notes or sounds.

In the papers on nature and materials, researchers have measured the acoustic properties of fibers more strictly.

Because water can pmit sound better than air, they put fibers in a tank opposite to the standard sound energy converter. The sound pducer can send out the sound waves detected by the fibers alternately, and can also detect the sound waves emitted from the fibers.

The researchers hope to eventually take these experiments.
纤维的性能综合在一根单一纤维中。例如，强烈振动可改变反射光纤的光学特性，从而使纤维织物可进行光学通信。除了可穿戴式麦克风和生物传感器，该纤维的应用还包括可监测海洋中水流量的网以及高分辨率的大面积成像系统，利用这种声学纤维织成的织物相当于数百万个微小的声学传感器。研究人员表示，利用同样的机制，压电元件反过来也可将电力转化为运动。