https://www.thedailybeast.com/air-travel-is-awful-but-at-least-scientists-have-figured-out-how-to-make-the-toilet-better
is so jolting it feels like you might get sucked out.
But the shrieking airplane toilet might be a relic of the past. Researchers at
Brigham Young University have invented the quietest toilet ever, according to a
new paper published in the Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics.
Scott Sommerfeldt, a physics professor at Brigham Young, said that the idea grew
from a comment by a major manufacturer of aircraft toilets who noted his child
Two years later, Somerfeldt and his team have registered three patents for a
airplane toilet.
it is 25 years old and represents the unique aerodynamics of processing human
help suck out waste.
Somerfeldt said the sucking action contributes to the noise; at 38,000 feet, the
vacuum has to pull waste at about half the speed of sound, around 300 miles per
hour.
There was another problem: Airplane toilets have a sharp bend in their piping,
making an already loud process even louder.
Adding pipe between the bowl and the flushing valve cut the noise by 16
decibels. Another way to muffle the flush was to slope the pipes more to
eliminate the sharp bend, saving another 5 to 10 decibels.
What makes the toilet even more attractive is that it can be retrofit into
A quieter toilet has applications beyond planes: think trains, buses, and even
cruise ships.
Somerfeldt said the lower-volume lavatories need approval by Federal Aviation
Administration. Once that happens, assuming airlines buy in, passengers could be
flushing with abandon within a year.
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