Caltech researchers create 'sound bullets'

www.eurekalert.org...

Quote from source:
Highly focused acoustic pulses could produce superior acoustic images, be used as sonic scalpels, and probe for damage in bridges, boat hulls, and other opaque materials

PASADENA, Calif.—Taking inspiration from a popular executive toy ("Newton's cradle"), researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have built a device—called a nonlinear acoustic lens—that produces highly focused, high-amplitude acoustic signals dubbed "sound bullets."

The acoustic lens and its sound bullets (which can exist in fluids—like air and water—as well as in solids) have "the potential to revolutionize applications from medical imaging and therapy to the nondestructive evaluation of materials and engineering systems," says Chiara Daraio, assistant professor of aeronautics and applied physics at Caltech and corresponding author of a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) describing the development.

Daraio and postdoctoral scholar Alessandro Spadoni, first author of the paper, crafted their acoustic lens by assembling 21 parallel chains of stainless steel spheres into an array. Each of the 21 chains was strung with 21 9.5-millimeter-wide spheres. (Daraio says particles composed of other elastic materials and/or with different shapes also could be used.)

The device is akin to the Newton's cradle toy, which consists of a line of identical balls suspended from a frame by wires in such a way that they only move in one plane, and just barely touch one another. When one of the end balls is pulled back and released, it strikes the next ball in line and the ball at the opposite end of the cradle flies out; the balls in the middle appear to remain stationary (but really are not, because of the nonlinear dynamics triggered in the system).

I had to share this again because it is an interesting and scary discovery.

If in the wrong hands this could be dangerous, but as long as we use it in the proper way it should be then nothing should go wrong.

Interesting article and the physicists at Caltech are amazing to say the least.

Any thoughts?

Pred...

So simple. Different shapes for different purposes. Really interesting when you think about it.

I see this as being the basis for a sound saber, really cool though currently thinking how to make one.