The incredible human machine

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Mechanical Engineering

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Feb 20, 2024

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The Incredible Human Machine 1 The Incredible Human Machine Chandler Molinaro Utah Valley University AVSC 3200 Devin Broadbent February 9, 2024

The Incredible Human Machine 2 Abstract Most people survive their younger years without a thought of hearing damage or other ear impairments. Most people, in fact, do not know the range of things that the ears control. I meet people all the time that are unaware of how the pressure inside the ears needs to level with the surrounding pressure around us to be able to feel balanced. I suffer from Eustachian Tube Disfunction, or ETD, or so I have been told. I listened to a doctor explain to me that “my tubes don’t work right” but had no sincere understanding of what that meant. For this paper, I got to take a deeper dive and learn terms and what is really going on. As always, there are many “dos and don’ts” to keep your ears protected and let them continue performing their automatic processes. Hearing is only one of the many things that the ears provide that let us lead fulfilling and healthy lifestyles.

The Incredible Human Machine 3 Ear Anatomy – The Physical Parts of the Ear While it’s not new information to anyone that the ears are responsible for one’s ability to hear the world around them, the ears are equally necessary for their systems that enable us to balance ourselves and understand what our orientation is with the physical world. The anatomy of the ear includes three major parts. The outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. Each have individual responsibilities and are the homes of many extremely small and very important components. Let’s start from the visible piece of our ears and work our way in. The auricle is the main part of the outer ear which includes the helix, fossa, superior crus, inferior crus, antihelix, concha, tragus, antitragus, lobule, and external acoustic meatus and serves as the first stop for sound collection. The auricle is mostly comprised of skin and cartilage that does contain nerves giving the auricle feeling to the touch like any other extremity. The function of the outer ear is to connect the sounds around us into the inner parts of the ear safely. Sound waves travel from the opening, or the auricle, and down the acoustic meatus towards the eardrum, medically known as the tympanic membrane. The tympanic membrane “is a connective tissue structure, covered with skin on the outside and a mucous membrane on the inside” (Jones, 2020). If you were like me as a kid, you were plagued with constant infections of this membrane resulting in life lasting scarring that contributed to the later development of ETD. The middle ear begins at the tympanic membrane and ends at the lateral wall of the inner ear. This cavity is filled with nitrogen-rich gas and is lined with mucosa. This area includes a chain of the smallest bones in the body: the malleus, incus, and stapes, also known as ossicles.

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The Incredible Human Machine 4 As sound waves vibrate the tympanic membrane in the outer ear, the chain-link system of ossicles moves in response and send those mechanical movements through to the oval opening of the inner. A primary necessity of the middle ear is the matching pressure of the air-filled space to that of the air that we reside in. The middle ear cavity is connected to the outside air pressure by way of the eustachian tube, or auditory tube. This tube connects the cavity to the nasopharynx which is located at the top part of your throat. The pressures equalize by the auditory tube opening and closing when we swallow or yawn. The inner ear is by far the most complex and can be broken down into two major parts: the cochlea which is responsible for hearing, and the peripheral vestibular apparatus that is responsible for balance. The mechanical inferences of sound waves by the tympanic membrane and on to the ossicles, is received by the cochlea in the inner ear. Unlike the middle ear, this portion of the inner ear is filled with fluid that moves along with the vibrations sent to it. The wave of the fluid stimulates hair cells, and in turn moves the stereocilia that reside on top of the hair cells. Stereocilia are “hair-like projections that react to cochlea fluid movement” (Cleveland Clinic, 2022), and are the last step of the process as it sends an electrical signal to your temporal lobe through the auditory nerve. Eustachian Tube Dysfunction and its Fun Variants According to Boyle’s law, any area of high pressure will always try to move to an area of low pressure. The same occurs naturally inside our own body. The middle ear works hard by use of the eustachian tube to balance the pressure between the outside and inside of your body. But what happens when that piece doesn’t function properly? Dysfunction of this critical part in the ear has a few variants. One example is Obstructive Eustachian Tube Dysfunction. When the physical body is moved from an area where the outdoor pressure is high, to a space where the

The Incredible Human Machine 5 pressure is lower, the air inside the body will naturally want to release to match the new external pressure. With OETD, the tube will not open correctly, or at all, and cause a build-up of pressure and fluid with significant symptoms right with it. A person with this kind of condition can expect symptoms of “pressure or pain in the ears, a sense of fullness in the ears, and muffled hearing” (Nieman & Ward, 2023). Patulous Eustachian Tube Dysfunction is the opposite of obstructive dysfunction. In this problematic scenario, the eustachian tube always stays open. But doesn’t that mean that pressure is equalizing all the time and that should be awesome? One would think, however, is it also awesome to constantly hear things like you are in the front row of the show of your own bodies’ inner workings? Who doesn’t love listening to their own voice decibels louder while hearing your own breathing and blood pumping all at the same time? Speaking from first- hand experience, it is in fact one of the most annoying things that you can imagine, and you cannot escape it. There are no earmuffs in the world to guard you from that kind of internal noise. The other issue with this dysfunction is that it also usually takes turns going back and forth with obstructive dysfunction. Most people wake up in the mornings and try to figure out what kind of hair day it is going to be that day. People with ETD wake up and try to figure out if they are going to listen to themselves function all day or must battle vertigo and the appearance of being day drunk after bottomless mimosas at brunch. It is not a fun, or fair, game to play. Protect Those Ears! Like the eyes, the ears are very susceptible to injury due to their fragile nature. In the aviation industry, anyone exposed to a windy, busy ramp on any given day can tell you how loud it can be. It is so imperative to take the steps necessary to protect the ears as much as possible as damage is usually not reversible or easily healed like a broken bone or the flu. OSHA has outlined a standard for noise exposure considering decibels, or the unit used to measure the

The Incredible Human Machine 6 intensity of sound, and length of time for exposure for certain ranges of decibels. The highest allowed noise without ear protection, legally in the workplace, is 110 decibels and that is only to be sustained for no longer than thirty minutes. Tobias Holm writes an article on PlaneNerd stating “The decibels of a jet engine range from 120 to 140 and are one of the loudest manufactured sounds in existence” (2022). Ear protection, without question, is necessary around these monstrous machines and their overachieving decibel ranges. Most pilots opt for the use of noise cancelling headphones in the cockpit of smaller aircraft so that noise is reduced from the engine, but it is rare to see anyone conducting pre-flight inspections with actual ear protection. It is important to always remain wary of the situations you will be entering and the level of noise that you expose your ears to. Outside of hearing protection, it is also possible to reduce the risk of things like ETD. When you feel that you have any kind of sinus related issues or congestion, it is important that you take time off from the skies. If you feel buildup of pressure or any kind in the ears, make sure to see an ENT doctor so that you can find the underlying cause. Continuing to fly while these issues persist can cause lifelong damage to not only your hearing, but your ability to keep yourself balanced. Per the FAA, “between 5 and 10% of all general aviation accidents can be attributed to spatial disorientation, 90% of which are fatal” (Antunano, 2024). Physiological disorientation can only contribute even higher risk to a pilot who faces extreme conditions during IFR operations. Leave the Wax Alone! Ear wax, by popular opinion, is a nuisance and considerably disgusting. There is no better feeling than removing that “gunk” from your ears after a nice hot shower. Scientist and doctors, however, might disagree. The scientific name for ear wax is cerumen and it is a bigger blessing to your ears than a nice pair of Bose A20’s. Cerumen is not actually wax, rather a combination of

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The Incredible Human Machine 7 dead skin cells with other secretions from glands within the ears skin. The substance is responsible for keeping the ear lubricated and provides the ears with its very own self-cleaning system. “Ear wax protects the ear by trapping and preventing dust, bacteria, and other germs and small objects from entering and damaging the ear” (Shargorodsky, 2022). After some digging, I found that it is often better to leave ear wax alone, unless you are a person who produces more wax than normal. Overproduction is recognizable due to its cause of discomfort, fullness, and ear infections. It is another one of those incredible autonomous functions of the body that never stops working, and takes care of you, for you.

The Incredible Human Machine 8 Conclusion The human body is never shorts on surprises and fascinating content. The ears contain the ability to transfer energy from the form of sound waves, through mechanical movement, to fluid movement, to electrical current to tell the brain what is going on in our surroundings. The ears also maintain themselves by providing their own system of cleaning without the need for your intervention unless a dysfunction occurs. Without your help to protect them otherwise, however, you may be at risk of hearing or orientation damage. Some injuries to the ear are not entirely preventable, but there are always ways to reduce risk of damage. Take your ear protection as serious as you take your physical health otherwise. As small as they are, the ears are one big, awesome piece of one incredible human machine.

The Incredible Human Machine 9 References Antunano, M. J. (n.d.). Spacial disorientation. https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/2022-11/spatial_disorientation.pdf Holm, T. (2022, August 26). What is the decibel level of a jet plane? . Planenerd. https://planenerd.com/decibels-of-a-jet-engine/ Inner ear: Anatomy & function . Cleveland Clinic. (2022, October 21). https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/24340-inner-ear Jones, O. (2020, August 16). The external ear . TeachMeAnatomy. https://teachmeanatomy.info/head/organs/ear/external-ear/ Nieman, C. L., & Ward, B. K. (2023, October 26). Eustachian tube dysfunction . Johns Hopkins Medicine. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/eustachian- tube-dysfunction Reinhart, R. O. (2008). Basic flight physiology . McGraw-Hill. Shargorodsky, J. (2022, May 30). Ear Wax . Mount Sinai Health System. https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/diseases-conditions/ear-wax#:~:text=Ear %20wax%20protects%20the%20ear,water%20is%20in%20the%20canal

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