Textile Research Journal

http://trj.sagepub.com Carbonized and Activated Non-woven as High Performance Acoustic Materials: Part II Noise Insulation
Y. Chen and N. Jiang Textile Research Journal 2009; 79; 213 DOI: 10.1177/0040517508093593 The online version of this article can be found at: http://trj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/79/3/213

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Textile Research Journal

Article

Carbonized and Activated Non-woven as High Performance Acoustic Materials: Part II Noise Insulation
Noise can be reduced by sound barrier materials, and transmission loss (TL) measurements are used to determine the insulation performance of sound barriers. In this paper, TL of the non-woven composites with two surface layers and three base layers was measured and analyzed using Brel and Kjr impedance tubes and Pulse software. The results show that non-woven composites with activated carbon fiber (ACF) nonwoven as a surface layer had significantly higher values of average TL than glass fiber-surfaced composites in both the low frequency range (1001600 Hz) and the high frequency range (16006400 Hz). Regarding the sound barrier performance, base non-wovens made of cotton and ramie were better than polypropylene-based non-wovens in the whole frequency range, while at the low frequencies, especially below 600 Hz, glass fiber-surfaced non-woven was better than ACF-surfaced nonwoven. The composite with cotton non-woven as a base and ACF as a surface exhibited the highest average TL value of 8.56 dB and the lowest mass per unit area of 106 g/m2.

Abstract

Y. Chen1 and N. Jiang

School of Human Ecology, Louisiana State University Agricultural Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, U.S.A.

Key words

cotton, ramie, polypropylene, glass fiber, activated carbon fiber, non-woven composite, noise insulation, transmission loss

As described in the first part of this paper [1], when a noise wave reaches the surface of an acoustical material during its propagation by an airborne path, it will be split into three different parts: reflected, transmitted, and absorbed. The ability of a material to absorb noise waves is evaluated by measuring the reflected noise wave strength compared to the incident noise wave. In the second part of this paper, another acoustical property of materials, noise insulation, is discussed. In many engineering practices, encapsulation of a noise source using an insulating material is often required. Under this case, because of the barrier material existing between the noise source and receiver, the noise wave arriving at the receiver is a transmitted noise wave with a certain level of noise intensity reduction (Figure 1).1

The insulation performance of a barrier material is assessed by sound transmission loss (TL). This parameter is determined by the ratio of incident noise intensities (W/m2) to transmitted noise intensities, defined as [2] Ii TL = 10log 10 -It The unit of TL is dB and its value varies corresponding to the noise frequency. The TL mass law indicates that the

Corresponding author: e-mail: YChen@agcenter.lsu.edu

Textile Research Journal Vol 79(3): 213218 DOI: 10.1177/0040517508093593 Figure 2 appears in color online: http://trj.sagepub.com

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Table 1 Fiber and non-woven specifications.

Nonwoven PP Ramie Cotton ACF Glass fiber Fiber length (mm) 50.8 95.3 19.8 Fiber fineness (tex) 0.7 0.8 0.1 Weight (g/m2) 236 177 62 44 248 Thickness (mm) 35 35 35 3 3

Figure 1 Noise reduction by a barrier material.

of a surface layer non-woven (rayon precursor ACF) and a base layer non-woven of cotton, ramie, or polypropylene fiber. This two-layer structure shows an enhanced property for sound absorption, especially in the low frequency ranges. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the actual ability of these non-woven composites to form a barrier to noise waves. The sound insulation performance of these non-woven composites is discussed below.

sound TL increases as the mass or frequency increases. This is a theoretical rule that applies to most materials in certain frequency ranges. TL is also influenced by stiffness. Materials with low stiffness do not have coincidence dips, in particular frequency ranges where the sound TLs are reduced below those expected from the mass law. Since TL can be calculated by the mass law at a certain range of frequencies, a set of simplified predictive insulation models were established, such as the law of theoretical mass. Other simplified methods were proposed for the prediction of sound insulation on a single panel [3]. Callister et al. [4] derived an empirical expression to predict TL by combining the methods established by Sewell [5] and Cremer [6]. The ability of barrier materials to reduce the intensity of noise being transmitted depends on the type and structure of the barrier materials. The most important physical property controlling airborne sound TL through a material assembly is the mass per unit area of its component layers. For example, the mass law equation estimates that each time the frequency of measurement or the mass per unit area of a single layer wall is doubled, the TL is increased by about 6 dB [7]. Mass per unit area can be increased by increasing material thickness or material density. For best insulating performance, a barrier material should have a smooth and high density surface to maximize reflection of noise waves, a non-porous structure to effectively encapsulate incident noise waves, and a certain material stiffness to minimize vibration. From this viewpoint, many textile fabrics, either thin or porous in structure, may not be ideal for noise insulation. As already discussed, activated carbon fiber (ACF) nonwoven composites, because of their microporous structure, exhibit a great potential for use as high-performance noise absorbers. The ACF non-woven composites are composed

Materials and Methods

Experimental Samples
The experimental acoustic non-wovens were designed with two layers: a base layer made of a pure cotton non-woven, a pure ramie non-woven, or a pure polypropylene (PP) non-woven, and a surface layer made of a rayon-precursor ACF non-woven or a glass fiber non-woven. No bonding agents were used between the base and surface layers. These two non-woven layers could be simply bonded by needle-punching. Table 1 gives basic information on these experimental samples.

Method of Measuring Sound Transmission Loss

In this study, the instrumental method for testing sound TL of non-woven composites is ASTM Work Item 5285. This in-progress standard method describes the use of an impedance tube, four microphones, and a digital frequency analyzer for measuring material TL. The sound source to impinge test materials is a normal incidence noise wave. The Brel and Kjr TL tube Type 4206T is designed for the TL measurement. This tube set is actually an extension of the Brel and Kjr impedance tube Type 4206, including an additional pair of microphones and two extended tubes, a large tube (diameter 100 mm) for measuring sound frequencies within 501600 Hz and a small tube (diameter 29 mm) for measuring sound frequencies within 5006400 Hz. The TL test procedure is divided into two steps. In the first step, no sample is placed between the impedance

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Figure 2 Measuring principle of TL.

tubes. In this case, the results should be 100% transmission and 0% reflection. In the second step, a material sample is placed between the source tube and receiving tube to provide a barrier to the incident plane waves (Figure 2). By measuring the sound pressure at the four microphone locations 1, 2, 3, and 4, TL values of the material can be determined. As illustrated in Figure 2, A, B, C, and D are coefficients that represent complex amplitudes of the sound waves in the field of the normal incidence sound wave tube. These coefficients are determined by [8] j P1 e P2 e ---------------------------------------------, = A 2 sin k ( x 1 x 2 )
jkx 2 jkx 1

P1 e j P2 e B = --------------------------------------------------, 2 sin k ( x 1 x 2 )
j kx 1 j kx 2

Figure 3 TL of PP-based composites.

j P3 e P3 e -, C = --------------------------------------------2 sin k ( x 3 x 4 )
jkx 4 jkx 3

P3 e j P4e -, D = ----------------------------------------------2 sin k ( x 3 x 4 )

j kx 3 jkx 4

where P1, P2, P3, and P4 are transfer functions measured by four microphones located at 1, 2, 3, and 4; k is the wave number in the ambient fluid. The TL is defined as TL ( dB ) = 20log 10 C --- . A

determined as a function of the sound frequency (f) (Figures 35). The plotted curves combine the data in the low frequency range of 1001600 Hz (using the large Type 4206T tube) and the data in the high frequency range of 16006400 Hz (tested by the small Type 4206T tube), to indicate a whole bandwidth of the one-third octave band frequency. The x-axis uses the log scale for all plots. The ACF&PP curve in Figure 3 and ACF&Ramie curve in Figure 5 show a clear turning point around 1600 Hz, resulting from combining low and high frequency curves. The adjacent averaging method provided in the software Origin 7.0 was unable to improve this curve smoothness due to the experimental variance such as the effect of specimen uniformity and the effects of specimen mounting.

Results and Discussion

Data Combination
After examining the three base-layer non-wovens and six non-woven composites, the sound TL of these materials is

TL Under Low Frequencies

Low noise frequencies are usually referred to as being in the range of 1001600 Hz (Figures 35). It can be observed that, below 600 Hz, the glass fiber-surfaced non-woven composites (Glassfiber&PP, Glassfiber&Cotton, and Glassfiber&Ramie)

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Figure 4 TL of cotton-based composites.

Figure 6 Comparison of TL among the ACF-surfaced composites.

Table 2 Means of low-frequency sound TL (TL)*.

Base layer PP Cotton Ramie Surface layer None 1.58 (A) 2.09 (B) 2.29 (C) Glass fiber 3.36 (D) 3.74 (D) 3.82 (D) ACF 3.68 (E) 4.49 (F) 4.49 (F)

* Means with the same letter are not significantly different at the 95% confidence level.

Figure 5 TL of Ramie-based composites.

show higher TL values than the ACF-surfaced non-woven composites (ACF&PP, ACF&Cotton, and ACF&Ramie). However, this situation is reversed when the noise frequency is above 600 Hz. For a numerical comparison, the average values of the TL for all the non-wovens were defined by
F2

TL = -----------------------F2 F1

F1

TL ( f ) d f

where F1 is the lower bound of sound frequency in testing and F2 is the upper bound of sound frequency in measurement. The computed TL values, between F1 (100 Hz) and F2 (1600 Hz) for the acoustic non-wovens, are listed in Table 2. It can be observed that all the TL values for the three base layer non-wovens are within the range 1.58 2.29. With a composition of the base layers with the glass fiber layer, the TL values are increased to the level of 3.36 3.82. When the ACF surface layer is used, the TL values reach the highest level of 3.684.49. To see if the base non-wovens affect the composite performance of TL because of the use of the different fibers, PP, cotton, and ramie, the TLf curves for the three ACF composites are plotted in Figure 6. The curves of ACF&Cotton and ACF&Ramie almost overlap and surpass ACF&PP, revealing that cellulosic fiber may be better than PP fiber in noise insulation. This result is also confirmed by a statistical test of the Duncans multiple-range comparison [9]. As shown in Table 2, the TL values for ACF&Ramie and ACF&Cotton are grouped in F, while ACF&PP is in the group E at the 95% confidence level. The TLf curves for the three glass fiber composites plot-

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Table 3 Means of high-frequency sound transmission loss (TL )*.

Base layer PP Cotton Ramie Surface layer None 3.03 (A) 4.00 (B) 3.89 (B) Glass fiber 6.56 (C) 6.78 (C) 7.13 (C) ACF 6.72 (D) 8.56 (E) 7.06 (F)

* Means with the same letter are not significantly different at the 95% confidence level.

Conclusions
Sound TL of the non-woven composites (base layer: cotton, ramie, or polypropylene; surface layer: glass fiber or ACF) were produced and evaluated by Brel and Kjr impedance tubes. The results show that the non-woven composites ACF&Ramie, ACF&Cotton, and ACF&PP had significantly higher values of average TL than the glass fibersurfaced composites in both the low frequency range (100 1600 Hz) and high frequency range (16006400 Hz). In particular, the cotton- and ramie-base non-wovens were better than the PP-base non-woven in the whole one-third octave band frequency range. However, at low frequencies, especially below 600 Hz, glass fiber exhibited better noise barrier performance than ACF. In contrast, the ACF&Cotton non-woven composite showed the highest average TL value of 8.56 dB in the high frequency range, while its mass per unit area (106 g/m2) was the smallest of all the experimental non-woven composites.

Figure 7 Comparison of TL among the glass fiber-surfaced composites.

ted in Figure 7 also indicate that although the ACF composites with the cotton layer or ramie layer have higher TL, the difference is statistically insignificant as tested by the Duncans grouping, since the three values are all in the same group D.

TL Under High Frequencies

In the range of 16006400 Hz, the curves in Figures 3 and 5 show that glass fiber and ACF have almost the same TL values with either a PP base layer or a ramie base layer. Figure 4 reveals that ACF is superior to glass fiber when the cotton non-woven is used as a base layer. Within the high frequency range of 16006400 Hz (Figure 6), the curve of the ACF&Cotton composite exhibits the highest TL values. This indicates that the non-woven composite with the ACF surface layer and cotton base layer would provide excellent performance for sound insulation in the high frequency ranges. For better comparison, the average values of the transmission loss (TL) are computed and listed in Table 3. The composites with the ACF non-woven as a surface layer still exhibit the highest capacity of sound TL (TL between 6.72 and 8.56). The Duncans multiple-range comparison indicates that for the ACF-surfaced composites, ACF&Cotton exhibits a significantly higher TL value than ACF&PP and ACF&Ramie (Figure 6). The three glass fiber non-woven composites are within the same group C, showing no significant difference in insulating high frequency sound waves, no matter what type of base-layer non-woven is used. This analysis is also consistent with the graphical illustration shown in Figure 7.

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge their thanks to John I. Dickson at the LSU Agricultural Center Cotton Laboratory for helping in the cotton fiber measurement, and to Suzhou Activated Carbon Fiber Corporation (Anhui, China) for providing the ACF sample. Thanks are also extended to The Louisiana Board of Regents for the funding support through the Governors Biotechnology Initiative.

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