An investigation into the designing of fibrous sound absorption materials incorporated with nanofibers: a case study of a multi-layered material composed of PET nonwoven and PAN nanofibers

Abstract

The present work aimed to investigate the effect of nanofiber enhancement on the sound absorption performance of fibrous materials through a brief review of the recent progress in the field and highlight the current challenges and issues for measuring and modeling the sound absorption coefficient (SAC) of such structures. Moreover, some composite samples consist of polyethylenterephthalat (PET) nonwoven fabric and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibers web were prepared to be studied as a case study. The nanofiber deposition amounts, nanofiber orientation, and nanofiber layering sequence were chosen as the main variables of samples. Various amounts of deposition were achieved through three different electrospinning (ES) time of 15, 60, and 180 min. The random and aligned orientation of the nanofiber web was obtained by using a rotating collector. The effect of the layering sequence of the nanofiber layer was studied in the form of quadruple-layered assemblies of samples. The results showed that the samples incorporated with the nanofiber layer with 60 min of ES and random orientation when it is used in the second position of the layering sequence have the best performance of sound absorption, mainly at lower critical frequency range. Furthermore, a discussion on some available empirical models and compare the results confirms that there is a need for developing a new approach for measuring and modeling the SAC and consequently designing such absorbers.