Acoustic fabrics

A team led by ISN-affiliated MIT faculty members Yoel Fink and John Joannopoulos and including a scientist from the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine has created a new acoustic fabric that can act as an extremely sensitive microphone to detect sounds, and as a speaker to produce them. The fabric, containing piezoelectric fibers, could lead to garments incorporating medical monitoring and communications, and might also be used in structural applications to monitor the stresses that lead to cracking in buildings and bridges.
A grey acoustic fiber snakes across a background of blue and red fabric

An MIT team has designed an “acoustic fabric,” woven with a fiber that is designed from a “piezoelectric” material that produces an electrical signal when bent or mechanically deformed, providing a means for the fabric to convert sound vibrations into electrical signals. Image: Greg Hren

Black and grey acoustic fibers are bound to a red fabric by grey threads

The team wove the fiber with yarns to produce panels of drapable, machine-washable fabric. Image: Greg Hren

A fabric is woven on a loom

The acoustic fiber can be woven with conventional yarns using a traditional loom. Image: Courtesy of the researchers

Multicolored fabrics swatches

In addition to wearable hearing aids, clothes that communicate, and garments that track vital signs, acoustic fabrics serve as dust-sensing spacecraft skin, and crack-detecting building coverings.

A blue shirt shown from the front and back. On the back are two lighter fabric panels.

Two panels of acoustic fabric sewed to the back of a dress shirt are able to determine the direction of sudden sounds such as handclaps.