Fabrication of flexible sound absorption composite by constructing membrane with damping function on fabric

Abstract

Noise, such as people talking, car whistle, tire friction, etc., affect people’s lives. In practical applications, curtains and wall coverings have sound absorption function to reduce noise annoyance is expected by people. In order to improve the sound absorption of the widely used woven fabric, a damping membrane was constructed on the fabric surface to prepare a flexible sound-absorbing composite material. Effects of fabric structure, constructed structure, membrane thickness, filler on the sound absorption of the composite were explored. From the results, the sound absorption of composite is caused by the porous sound absorption of the fabric, the damping and noise reduction of the membrane and the resonance sound absorption of the structure, which cannot be simply predicted by the model. When the membrane thickness of the structure was about 50 μm and the filler was vermiculite, the composite exhibited the best sound absorption performance: the sound absorption coefficient (α) reached 0.56, which was about 2.8 times that of the fabric. Moreover, the sound absorption bandwidth of the composite was nearly 1500 Hz wider than that of fabrics. This flexible composite material can be used as sound-absorbing products such as wall coverings, thin curtains and other products.