Phononic Vibes introduces a new disruptive technology with unprecedented performances in the vibration and noise control and isolation, with a circular economy approach.

It originated from the research activity at Politecnico di Milano and Massachusetts Institute of Technology of its founders in the field of meta-materials, to achieve and engineer novel and unmatched properties. Thanks to the versatility of its products, which are protected through the pending patents of the fundamental technology, Phononic Vibes guarantees isolation performances much greater than the products nowadays on the market, in the infrastructure and industrial sectors, introducing a revolution in these fields.

The aim of the project is the development, production and selling of the first vibration and noise isolation products (so-called phononic panels) based on the physics of phononic crystals, which are meta-materials characterized by a periodic geometry, associated with the repetition in space of a fundamental unit, called unit cell. Its topology is designed and optimized such that these artificial crystals greatly cut down the mechanical and acoustic waves, in an ultra-wide range of frequencies. Unlike all the existing technologies and products, whose functioning is based on the specific properties of the materials, i.e., high damping and density, the performances of the presented technology are independent on the material, but they depend on the topology only. Therefore, the ultra-high performance products, characterized by low thickness and weight, can be built using recycled materials (such as recycled plastic). Furthermore, the physics behind the technology allows to achieve unprecedented performances in terms of isolation.

Thanks to the modularity and scalability of the solution, the technology can be applied to several different markets such as:
- railways and tramways infrastructures, for the isolation of vibrations generated by the passage of coaches, which causes structural damages in nearby buildings and high noise pollution; unlike all the existing products, phononic panels can be inserted on the side of the tracks, without the need of removing them and stopping the traffic;
- industrial sector, for the sound isolation in noisy machineries and HVAC machines: our technology allows to meet the strict law requirements in terms of noise pollution, which is not possible with the existing products;
- anti-noise barriers in railways and highways, with ultra-high performances in terms of noise pollution reduction and made 100% of recycled material;
- sound isolation panels for buildings, guaranteeing high performances, with low weight and thickness panels;
- vibro-acoustic isolation panels for the aerospace sector, where the need for products with high performances, low weight and thickness is fundamental.

The team is also performing research activity about the application of such technology as seismic barriers, in order to protect buildings or settlements from seismic waves generated by earthquake events.

The products can be very cost-effective thanks to use of injection molding techniques, which guarantees high production volumes and lower costs than the existing products. Moreover, thanks to the use of recycled material, a significant quantity of end-of-life material, such as plastic, is employed allowing to reduce the environmental impact of the solution.