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

SBIR 第一阶段：具有增强声学性能的注塑热固性形状记忆聚合物

• 批准号: 0912586
• 负责人: Brent Duncan
• 金额: $ 10万
• 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: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-07-01 至 2010-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0912586&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Injection; molded; Thermoset

This Small Business Innovation Research 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阶段I项目旨在开发一种新的材料和方法，以设计基于Shape-Memory聚合物的舒适定制耳机。这些设备是单独的耳塞或其他三个市场中产品的附件 - 耳机，免提和蓝牙设备以及助听器：任何需要舒适和密封的听觉设备。该作品着重于这些适应性的自我调节材料，这些材料符合内耳管的复杂轮廓，舒适且密封良好。该项目的智力优点与从具有增强的声学特性的量身定制的形状内存聚合物中开发自适应耳机有关。当前的材料解决方案遭受了几个缺点，包括无法控制耳朵施加的力在内耳敏感区域上施加的力，并同时阻止了不需要的噪声。该阶段I项目将开发下一代自我调整的形状内存聚合物，可提供长期舒适性且有效的密封作为具有成本效益的一定尺寸的所有设备。 该项目还将为增强的设备提供总体概念证明，并为最终生产成功的商业设备所必需的基本研究知识基础。到其理想的特性，化学交联的形状 - 内存聚合物越来越多地在生物医学应用中提出，但是它们对大众市场的广泛采用受到限制。 新型制造工艺Mnemosynation在该项目之前开发的Mnemosynation可以使一类新的热固性聚合物具有完全可回收的菌株，可以通过传统的塑料加工技术制造质量。因此，该项目的广泛影响是两个方面：它将为具有形状记忆的复杂几何形状的未来注射型设备奠定基础，并且它将在形状 - 内存聚合物耳机中建立声音衰减与交联密度之间的第一个联系。 更好的闭塞可以转化为较低所需的聆听量，例如耳机，蓝牙无手机设备和助听器。这将是Mnemosynation制造过程的第一个商业证明基础，并为新一代质量生产的可自定义的符合人体工程学塑料铺平了道路，具有可调的形状记忆属性。该奖项是根据2009年《美国恢复和重新投资法》（Priment Law Law Law 111-5）资助的。