Acoustical Evaluation and Comparative Study of Maple Leaves and Coir and Polyester Fibers

ABSTRACT

In the last few years, concerns about the adverse effects of petroleum-based materials on the environment and public health have gradually increased. It is worthy and meaningful to find natural materials to substitute the conventional synthetic sound absorbers. The sound absorption properties of Norway maple leaves were investigated in this paper. The leaves laminated in 5 to 50 layers were measured in the low- to mid-frequency and mid- to high-frequency ranges in the impedance tubes. Later, the sound absorption performance of laminated leaves was compared with polyester, kapok, coir, and broom fibers. The results show that the 15 layers of leaves exhibit good sound absorption properties in the two frequency ranges. Moreover, the 15 layers leaves have comparable sound absorption performance to polyester and coir fibers. The results indicate that the maple leaves are the potential alternative material to synthetic material in a low-frequency range with a thin structure.

摘要

在过去几年中, 对石油基材料对环境和公众健康的不利影响的担忧逐渐增加. 寻找天然材料替代传统的合成吸声材料具有重要的意义. 本文研究了挪威枫叶的吸声性能. 在阻抗管中, 在低频至中频和中高频范围内测量了层叠5至50层的叶片. 随后, 将层叠叶片的吸声性能与聚酯、木棉、椰壳和扫帚纤维进行了比较. 结果表明, 15层叶片在两个频率范围内均表现出良好的吸声性能. 此外, 15层树叶的吸声性能与聚酯和椰壳纤维相当. 结果表明, 在低频范围内, 层叠枫叶具有较薄的结构, 是合成材料的潜在替代材料.

关键词:

• 枫叶
• 生物材料
• 层状结构
• 吸声

KEYWORDS:

• Maple leaves
• biomaterial
• laminated structure
• sound absorption

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the European Union (European Structural and Investment Funds - Operational Programme Research, Development and Education) in the frames of the project “Modular platform for autonomous chassis of specialized electric vehicles for freight and equipment transportation,” Reg. No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_025/0007293 and the Czech Science Foundation (GACR) - project Advanced structures for thermal insulation in extreme conditions (Reg. No. 21-32510M). Tao Yang would like to thank Mr. Filip Sanetrnik for his help throughout the specimens preparation for impedance tube measurement.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).