SBIR Phase IB: Injection-molded Thermoset Shape-memory Polymers with Enhanced Acoustic Properties

SBIR IB 阶段：具有增强声学性能的注塑热固性形状记忆聚合物

• 批准号: 1003287
• 负责人: Brent Duncan
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: Syzygy Memory Plastics
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-01-01 至 2010-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1003287&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; IB; Injection; molded

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project aims to develop a new material and methodology to design comfortable, custom earpieces based on shape-memory polymers. These devices are stand alone earplugs or attachments to products in three other markets - headphones, hands-free and Bluetooth devices, and hearing aids: any aural device that demands comfort and seal. The work focuses on these adaptive self-adjusting materials that conform to complex contours of the inner ear canal, are comfortable and seal well. The intellectual merit of the project is related to developing adaptive earpieces from tailored shape-memory polymers with enhanced acoustic properties. Current material solutions suffer from several drawbacks, including an inability to control the force exerted by the earpiece upon the sensitive regions of the inner ear and concurrently block out unwanted noise. This Phase I project will develop next generation self-adjusting shape-memory polymers that deliver both long term comfort and an effective seal as cost-effective one-size-fits-all devices. This project will also provide overall proof of concept for enhanced devices and generate a fundamental research knowledge base necessary to ultimately produce successful commercial devices. Due to their desirable properties, chemically crosslinked shape-memory polymers are increasingly being proposed in biomedical applications, but their broader adoption into mass markets has been limited. The novel manufacturing process, mnemosynation, developed leading up to this project enables a new class of thermoset polymers with fully recoverable strains that can be mass manufactured through traditional plastics processing techniques. Thus, the broad impact of this project is two-fold: it will lay the groundwork for future injection moldable devices of complex geometries possessing shape memory and it will establish the first links between sound attenuation and crosslinker density in shape-memory polymer earpieces. Better occlusion translates into lower required listening volumes on devices such as earphones, Bluetooth hands free devices and hearing aids. This will be the first commercial proving ground for the mnemosynation manufacturing process and pave the way for a new generation of mass producible customizable ergonomic plastics with tunable shape memory properties. This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目旨在开发一种新的材料和方法，以设计基于形状记忆聚合物的舒适定制耳机。这些设备是独立的耳塞或其他三个市场产品的附件-耳机，免提和蓝牙设备和助听器：任何需要舒适和密封的听觉设备。这项工作的重点是这些自适应的自我调节材料，符合复杂的轮廓内耳道，是舒适和密封良好。该项目的智力价值与开发具有增强声学特性的定制形状记忆聚合物的自适应耳机有关。当前的材料解决方案具有若干缺点，包括不能控制由耳机施加在内耳的敏感区域上的力并且同时阻挡不想要的噪声。该一期项目将开发下一代自调节形状记忆聚合物，提供长期舒适性和有效的密封性，作为具有成本效益的通用设备。该项目还将为增强型设备提供整体概念验证，并生成最终生产成功商业设备所需的基础研究知识库。由于其理想的性能，化学交联的形状记忆聚合物越来越多地被提出用于生物医学应用，但它们在大众市场的广泛应用受到限制。为该项目开发的新型制造工艺mememosynation使一类新的热固性聚合物具有完全可恢复的应变，可以通过传统的塑料加工技术大规模生产。因此，该项目的广泛影响是双重的：它将为未来具有形状记忆的复杂几何形状的注塑成型设备奠定基础，并将建立形状记忆聚合物耳机中声音衰减和交联剂密度之间的第一个联系。更好的遮挡效果意味着耳机、蓝牙免提设备和助听器等设备所需的收听音量更低。这将是记忆制造工艺的第一个商业试验场，并为新一代具有可调形状记忆特性的可大规模生产的可定制人体工程学塑料铺平道路。该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。