However, one can also pay attention to the acoustics in an earlier stage. The material I work on is a composite sandwich made of glass fibre and a plastic honeycomb structure. It has very good acoustic and insulating properties. With this material, manufacturers should be able to build lighter aircrafts and reduce labour costs, since the insulation blankets no longer need to be added. Ultimately I want to improve the material in such a way that – besides being cheaper and lighter – the airplanes made of it will also be more comfortable. But (laughing) I’m not sure that this goal is also feasible.
I’m improving the acoustic properties by experimenting with the orientation of the fibres and the type of plastic. I want the material to absorb another 10 to 20 decibel. I perform my experiments with a cylinder made of the composite sandwich. Speakers placed around the cylinder produce noise, and with a microphone on the inside, I measure the propagation through the structure.
The damping properties of the material differ for different frequencies, and it’s still a bit problematic for frequencies between 1000 and 3000 Hertz. I want to narrow that bandwidth.
I also want to conduct these experiments with a composite sandwich featuring carbon. Acoustically, glass fibre is better, but the mechanical properties of carbon are greater. Maybe I can combine the two.
Sometimes the research is funny, like the time when I built a numerical model. The results were in agreement with the results from the experiment, but my most happy time will be my thesis defence. I’m looking forward to working outside of the university setting. My dream is to have my own factory specialising in building materials. I’m working on a material for airplanes now, but this material can also be used for buildings. I couldn’t start a factory for airplanes, because of the scale – such a factory would need to be very big. I want to open the factory in China, because I have support there. Here I don’t have a network.”
Geerte Baars woont in het huis ‘Marckt Kaufmann’ op Markt 9. Het is een dubbel gemengd huis: corps en Virgiel, vrouwen en mannen door elkaar. Ze woont hier vanaf maart en is nog twee weken HJ: dan wordt er een nieuwe bewoner ingestemd en kan ze een kamer doorschuiven. Baars is eerstejaars student bouwkunde en lid van studentenvereniging Virgiel. HJ zijn betekent hier dat je moet zorgen dat het vuilnis en oud papier op tijd buiten staan en je moet regelmatig koken.
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