Influences of Various Parameters on Sound Absorption Properties of Vetiver Grass Fiber-based Developed Composite Material

Abstract

Recently, the trend of natural fibers based eco-friendly materials utilization in the field of acoustic application has been growing rapidly in place of traditional synthetic materials to counter environmental issues, due to their cheap processing cost and other several advantages. In this work, sound absorption and thermal insulation properties of the vetiver grass (Chrysopogon zizanioides) based material have been investigated. Efforts have been carried out in developing porous vetiver grass fibers based composite material. The developed samples tested for the sound absorption coefficient (alpha) over a wide range of frequencies (100 Hz – 4000 Hz) by the reverberation chamber method as per IS 8225-1987/ISO 354- 2003/ASTM 423-909-19 and noise reduction coefficient (NRC) also been calculated. The experimental outcome proved that vetiver grass-based manufactured material has comparable sound absorption to already developed traditional synthetic materials. Further, two different bulk densities, thickness and fibre lengths-based samples were developed and their sound absorption acoustic performances were evaluated to see the influences of these parameters on sound absorption characteristics. Apart from these, some required physical properties as per application requirements were also discussed. However, in this study major focus has been done on acoustical properties.