Experimental Sound Absorption of Several Loose Uncooked Granular Materials

Abstract

Absorbent materials it's an acoustic solution that can be used to control the reverberation time (RT) in deferent spaces as: conference rooms, in halls, theaters, cinema.... and also, it can be used in walls or ceilings of buildings to improve the acoustic insulation Which can be used for internal separations between spaces. This study focuses on the experimental study of the acoustic absorption coefficient of several granular food materials as a function of frequency 50 to 1600 Hz. All acoustic absorption tests performed in this study are performed by an acoustic impedance tube or Kundt tube. And to the knowledge of the author it is the first time in the literature that someone studies the acoustic behavior of this kind of materials. Several parameters were studied such as the effect of thickness on the sound absorption coefficient of the materials tested, like the influence of the grain form on the acoustic absorption by the introduction of a new parameter L / D, and finally the influence of density and type of material on the sound absorption coefficient. The objective of this work is to study the influence of the grain shape on the sound absorption coefficient, and that's why we have chosen these fifteen materials each one with its own shape. The results of these experimental tests show that when the sample thickness rises, the acoustic absorption coefficient rises too with a shift from resonance frequency to low frequencies. When the L/D parameter rises, the absorption behavior increases too in all frequencies mentioned. Finally, as the density of the tested material rises, the percentage of sound absorption of the materials also rises.