The chamber looks like something out of a science fiction novel. All four walls, the ceiling and the floor are covered with fiberglass or foam wedges.

In the University's noise control lab, the anechoic chamber is one of several special rooms -- a place on campus where researchers study sound.

"We desire to make people aware of noise as a stress-raiser in life, and persuade people to be very aware of their noise environment," said Gary Koopmann, director of the noise control lab.

The anechoic chamber allows sound measurements to be made in the absence of reflections to simplify the measuring process and quantify noise, he said.

"When the sound hits the wall, it is absorbed almost entirely so that there are no reflections in the room," he said.

The lab maintains the reverberation room, as well. In this room the walls reflect sound to allow for more complicated propagation patterns, Koopmann said.

The reverberation room researches active noise control, the cancellation or lowering of a noise by adding an out-of-phase noise. An out-of-phase noise has an opposite wavelength of the first noise. These wavelengths cancel each other out and either lower or cancel one noise by another.

"We will soon see applications of active noise control in cars. For example, the interior noise in cars will be actively controlled," he said.

The noise control lab also researches acoustic agglomeration, which addresses problems created by flyash, a byproduct of coal burning. Although most flyash is caught by conventional filters in power plants, some smaller particles escape by passing right through filters, Koopmann said.

These particles can get trapped in lungs and cause emphysema and other respiratory problems, he said.

The lab's experiments create very intense sound fields for the particles to pass through. The sound then causes the particles to vibrate, collide, and form larger particles that can be filtered by conventional means, Koopmann said.

The noise control lab also studies the design of materials that do not radiate or transmit sound as effectively as others, Koopmann said.

This material tailoring is accomplished by placing strands of a "smart" nickel titanium alloy, called nitinol, in certain materials. Nitinol remembers the shape of its production, and when heated to a certain temperature it returns to its original shape, Koopmann said.

The research aims to predict how objectionable a certain installation will be to homebuilders before construction begins, said John Lamancusa, assistant professor of mechanical engineering. This allows builders to do things during the design stage instead of after construction is underway, Lamancusa said.

Although the lab can do a good job measuring the future production of noise from a particular installation, such as a helicopter base, this does not make for any definites, he said.

"The unknown question is what is too much," Lamancusa said. "You can't just say this much is good and this much is bad."

He pointed to the example of motorcycles. Although motorcycle owners think they sound great, many people believe they create too much noise and are a nuisance, he said.