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Sound absorption performance of natural fibers and their composites

Article  in  Science China Technological Sciences · August 2012

DOI: 10.1007/s11431-012-4943-1

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 SCIENCE CHINA
Technological Sciences
• RESEARCH PAPER • August 2012 Vol.55 No.8: 2278–2283
doi: 10.1007/s11431-012-4943-1

Sound absorption performance of natural fibers and their

composites
YANG WeiDong & LI Yan*
School of Aerospace Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China

Received April 19, 2012; accepted May 25, 2012; published online June 30, 2012

This research aimed to study the sound absorption properties of natural fibers and their reinforced composites. Sound absorp-
tion coefficients of three types of natural fibers, i.e., ramie, flax and jute fibers and their composites were measured by the
two-microphone transfer function technique in the impedance tube. The results were compared with synthetic fibers and their
composites. It was found that both natural fibers and their composites had superior capability of noise reduction. The mul-
ti-scale and hollow lumen structures of natural fibers contributed to the high sound absorption performance. Moreover, the
sound absorption properties of these natural fibers were also calculated by the Delany-Bazley and Garai-Pompoli models. They
showed good agreement with the experimental data. It was concluded that multi-functional composite materials can be made
by natural fibers so that both the mechanical and acoustical functions can be achieved.

natural fiber reinforced composites, sound absorption, impedance tube

Citation: Yang W D, Li Y. Sound absorption performance of natural fibers and their composites. Sci China Tech Sci, 2012, 55: 22782283, doi:
10.1007/s11431-012-4943-1

1 Introduction composites have drawn a lot of attention from material sci-

entists and engineers in recent years due to their good me-
chanical properties, light weight, environmentally friendly
Nowadays noise pollution has become the third pollution
and biodegradable [2, 3]. However, natural fibers, as fibrous
resource that has great adverse influences on the environ-
porous materials, have also been interested in yielding the
ment, human health and economy. How to reduce the dam-
variety of new sound absorption structures in more recent
ages of noise has become an important issue. Generally, the
years [4–7]. As a kind of fibers, natural fibers are supposed
means of controlling noise include active control and pas-
to have the same mechanism for acoustic absorption as oth-
sive control [1]. The former is accomplished by reducing
er conventional synthetic fibrous materials, like glass fiber
the production of noise at the locations of noise sources, but
and mineral wool. The mechanisms of sound absorption in
it can only control the noises of a narrow frequency range.
porous fiber material are basically the viscous effects due to
The passive control is normally achieved by utilizing high
the internal friction between fiber wall and airflow, and
sound absorption materials, which can be used to absorb
thermal losses due to heat transfer among different fibers
noises of a wide frequency range by effectively dissipating
[8].
sound energy on the process of propagation of the sound
Previously, the sound absorption coefficient of a material
wave.
was measured by the well-known standing-wave-ratio
Natural fibers such as ramie, jute, kenaf, etc. reinforced
(SWR) method. However, the SWR method is relatively
time consuming due to the requirements of a single fre-
*Corresponding author (email: liyan@tongji edu.cn)

© Science China Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012 tech.scichina.com www.springerlink.com
 Yang W D, et al. Sci China Tech Sci
quency operation, a travelling microphone inside the im-
pedance tube, and a method of accurate location of the
minimum sound pressure. In recent years, a method, called
transfer function method [9], which calculates the transfer
function between the sound pressures at two settled loca-
tions, Mic.1 and Mic.2 (as shown in Figure 1), has been
extensively used.
Delany and Bazley [10] studied the impedance and wave
propagation properties of fibrous materials in 1970s. They
normalized these parameters into dimensionless groups and
presented simple power-law relations obtained by a large
amount of experimental data of glass fiber and mineral wool.
The empirical model is still a good and fast approximation
to the theoretical calculations because the model needs only
one input parameter, the airflow resistivity. In addition,
Garai and Pompoli [11] developed an empirical model
based on a number of measurements upon polyester fibers.
Due to the differences of fiber diameters and the densities of
the matrix materials, they corrected some parameters in
order to apply the calculations of polyester fibers effectively.
It should be pointed out that the diameter and density of
polyester are similar to natural fiber. Thus, using Garai and
Pompoli model to predict the sound absorption parameter of
natural fiber might give an accurate result.
In this study, the sound absorption coefficient of natural
fibers, like flax, ramie and jute fiber, and their composites
were studied from both experimental and theoretical. The
mechanisms of the sound absorption were proposed. The
results were also compared with those of synthetic fibers,
which proved that natural fiber composites have superior
acoustic absorption properties and are good candidates for
sound absorption structures.
2 Materials and experiment
Three kinds of plain woven natural fibers which are ramie,
flax and jute fibers were used to study the acoustic absorp-
tion performance. All the natural fiber samples had the
identical thickness of 40 mm for measurements. Three kinds
of natural fibers reinforced epoxy composites were made by
hot press. The fiber volume fractions were around 65% and
the thickness was around 3 mm. The composite samples for
Figure 1 Schematic diagram of instrumentation for the transfer function
method of measuring sound absorption coefficients of natural fiber rein-
forced composites. Mic.1 and Mic.2 denote two microphones.
August (2012) Vol.55 No.8 2279
acoustic measurements were machined by water jet that
guaranteed the sample to have superior dimension accuracy.
Plain woven glass and carbon fibers and their composites
were also prepared in the same way as those of natural fi-
bers for comparison.
The impedance tube for the transfer function method was
employed to measure the sound absorption coefficients of
fibers and composites. The facilities were made by BSWA
Technology Co., Ltd, as shown in Figure 2. The tests were
conducted according to ISO10534-2 standard. The meas-
urements are composed of SW422, SW477 and SW499
impedance tubes with diameters of 100, 30 and 16 mm for
measuring frequencies from 63–2000, 800–6300 and 2500–
10000 Hz, respectively. The sound absorption coefficients
of fibers were measured at frequencies from 63 to 2000 Hz
due to the edge constraint effects and the difficulties of
achieving the dimensional accuracies of the fabrics for
smaller samples [12]. The measurements were conducted at
frequencies from 63 to 10000 Hz for composites at 25℃
and 60% relative humidity. The test samples of natural fiber
and synthetic fiber reinforced composites are shown in Fig-
ure 3.
3 Results and discussion
3.1 Sound absorption behavior of natural fibers
Figure 4 compares the sound absorption coefficients of nat-
ural fibers (ramie, flax and jute) with synthetic fibers (car-
bon and glass fibers). It can be found that jute fiber has the
Figure 2 Impedance tube by transfer function technique.
Figure 3 Acoustic measurement samples of different fibers reinforced
composites with diameters of 100, 30 and 16 mm, respectively.
2280 Yang W D, et al.
Figure 4 Sound absorption coefficients of natural and synthetic fibers.
best sound absorption property especially at frequencies
above 1000 Hz. The sound absorption coefficient is basi-
cally higher than 0.9. Additionally, the sound absorption
coefficients of flax and ramie fibers are about 0.8 and 0.6 at
frequencies above 800 Hz, respectively. However, the val-
ues for glass and carbon fibers are overall lower than those
of natural fibers. In order to make an easy visual compari-
son among the different fibers, the noise reduction coeffi-
cients (NRCs), defined as the arithmetic mean value of
sound absorption coefficients at 250, 500, 1000 and 2000
Hz, are summarized in Figure 5. It is found that NRCs of
ramie, jute and flax are as high as 0.6, 0.65 and 0.65 while
those of glass and carbon are 0.35 and 0.45, respectively.
The mechanism of fibrous materials to absorb sound en-
ergy mainly involves three physical processes: Firstly, when
the sound wave transmits into the fibers, the viscous effect
between fiber frame and numerous air cavities will attenuate
part of sound energy and convert it into heat; secondly, heat
transfer will happen due to temperature distinction between
different fibers and this process will further dissipate sound
Figure 5 Noise reduction coefficient (NRC) comparison of natural and
synthetic fibers.
Sci China Tech Sci August (2012) Vol.55 No.8
energy; finally, the vibration of air in the bulk materials will
also lead to the vibration of fibers [13].
Figure 6 compares the cross-sections of natural fibers
and synthetic fibers. Figure 6(a) shows the cross-section of
a single sisal fiber (which can be a typical representative of
the structures of natural fibers) and Figure 6(b) shows the
cross-sections of several glass fibers. It is found that a sin-
gle sisal fiber is made up of a bundle of hollow subfibers
that have lumen inside. However, for glass fiber (also a
typical representative for synthetic fibers), each fiber has
the same regular and solid construction. Figure 7 further
indicates the unique structural characteristics of natural
fibers. Therefore, natural fibers are porous fiber materials
which contain many connected open air cavities and those
air cativities might be the major contributors of sound en-
ergy absorption. The sound wave could propagate by vibra-
tion through the air spaces and inside the lumen of natural
fibers, in which the friction effect between cell wall and
airflow would transform sound energy into heat. Thus the
unique lumen structure endowed the superior sound
absorption ability, compared to glass and carbon fibers.
Moreover, by further observing the microstructures of
natural fibers, it can be realized that natural fiber possesses
a multi-scale structure as shown in Figure 7. A single sisal
fiber is made up of a bundle of hollow subfibers. The
cellwall of a subfiber is made up of millions of nano fibrils
[14]. The nano-sized fibrils would also lead to the extra
vibration, which caused more sound energy dissispation.
3.2 Theoretical predication of sound absorption prop-
erties of natural fibers
The Delany-Bazley empirical model needs the flow resisti-
Figure 6 Cross-section morphology of (a) sisal fiber and (b) glass fiber.
 Yang W D, et al. Sci China Tech Sci August (2012) Vol.55 No.8 2281

rely on the airflow resistivity values calculated with the

Mechel models, which is expressed by

6.8 (1   )1.296
 , (5)
a 2 3
where  is the viscosity of air (equal to 1.84×105 Pa s),
a is the radius of the fibers and  is the porosity which can
be determined by fiber matrix density and bulk density.
Figure 8 shows that the measured sound absorption coef-
ficient for the jute fiber in the impedance tube tended to
follow the general trend of the theoretical calculations ob-
tained by the predictions of the Delany-Bazley and the
Garai-Pompoli models. The theoretical calculated parame-
ters of natural fibers were shown in Table 1. The calculated
results of the Delany-Bazley model were similar to the pre-
dictions of Garai-Pompoli model, and the sound absorption
Figure 7 Multi-scale and hollow lumen structure of sisal fibers at differ- coefficient curves were consistent with the predictions of
ent magnifications.
the two models. The experimental data were a little larger
than the calculated results of the two models. The experi-
vity and then calculates the complex acoustic impedance, Zc mental sound absorption coefficient of jute fiber at 1600 Hz
and propagation constant, kc both of which can be used to was 0.92, while the values at the same frequency which
further determine the reflection coefficient. were calculated were about 0.98 of those of the two theo-
retical models.
  0 f 
0.754
 0 f 
0.732

Z c   0 c  1  0.0571    j0.087    , (1)
        3.3 Sound absorption behavior of natural fiber rein-
 
forced composites
  f 
0.7
 f 
0.595

kc    1  0.0978  0   j0.189  0   , (2) Figure 9 shows the sound absorption coefficients of these
c       
 

where  0 and c are the density and speed of air media,

respectively,  is the flow resistivity, f is the frequency
and   2f is the angular frequency.
The Garai-Pompoli model was utilized to predict the
flow resistivity, acoustic impedance and sound absorption
coefficient of polyester fibers, the diameters and density of
which are relatively close to those of natural fibers.

  0 f 
0.623
 0 f 
0.660

Z c   0 c  1  0.078    j0.074    , (3)
       
 

  f 
0.53
 f 
0.571

kc    1  0.121  0   j0.159  0  . (4)
c       
  Figure 8 Sound absorption coefficient curves of the jute fiber by experi-
mental results compared with the theoretical predictions of Delany-Bazley
The Delany-Bazley and the Garai-Pompoli models must model and Garai-Pompoli model.

Table 1 Theoretical calculated parameters of natural fibers

Fiber diameter Fiber matrix density Fiber bulk density Calculated porosity Calculated flow resistivity
Natural fibers
(m) (g/cm3) (g/cm3) (%) (Pa s/m2)
Flax 15 1.5 0.341 77.29 83421
Ramie 25 1.5 0.443 70.44 123782
Jute 58 1.37 0.411 70.03 19790
2282 Yang W D, et al.
Figure 9 Sound absorption coefficients of natural fibers (ramie, jute and
flax), and synthetic fibers (glass and carbon fiber) reinforced composites.
composites at the frequencies from 63 to 10000 Hz. It is
found that sound absorption properties of natural fiber rein-
forced composites are overall better than those of the glass
and carbon fiber reinforced composites. Jute fiber rein-
forced composite has the best sound absorption property
and the sound absorption coefficient can be as high as near-
ly 0.9 at 10000 Hz. It indicates that natural fiber reinforced
composites have superior noise reduction capability espe-
cially at high frequency which would be very beneficial for
the aeronautical applications due to the high sound fre-
quency service environment. The density and porosity of the
natural fiber reinforced composites and synthetic fiber rein-
forced composites were measured by underwater weighing
method and the results were shown in Table 2. It can be
seen that compared to glass and carbon fiber reinforced
composites, natural fibers (flax, ramie and jute) reinforced
composites possessed lower density and much higher poros-
ity. Therefore, the unique lumen structures of natural fibers
resulted in the lower density and higher porosity of their
reinforcing composites, which contributed to the more
sound energy absorption, thus better acoustic absorption
property. It should be pointed out that all the composites
studied appeared the sound absorption trough at 8000 Hz.
This is because that when the thickness of material is equal
to or even multiples of a quarter of incident wavelength, the
sound pressure will be the maximum while the vibration
rate of air particles is zero, which leads to the lowest sound
energy loss caused by the viscous effect.
Table 2 Density and porosity of natural fiber and synthetic fiber reinforced composites
Reinforcing fibers
Flax
Ramie
Jute
Glass
Carbon
Sci China Tech Sci August (2012) Vol.55 No.8
Figure 10 Sound absorption coefficient of epoxy resin.
Compared to natural fibers, the sound absorption proper-
ty of their reinforcing composites apparently decreased.
Natural fibers possess excellent sound absorption property
by themselves whereas the hollow lumen and air space
would be significantly diminished. The resin would occupy
some effective volume of airflow and the cavities between
fibers and inside lumens were compressed by the pressure
added during the process of composite manufacturing. Fig-
ure 10 shows the sound absorption properties of epoxy resin
and it can be seen that the sound absorption behavior of the
resin system is very low. Additionally, the sound absorption
property largely depends on the frequencies of sound wave.
The higher the frequency, the shorter the sound wave length
and the longer the propagation path of sound wave in the
composites. Therefore, more dissipation of sound energy
happens in the composites. This explains why natural fiber
composites have the best sound absorption performance at
high frequencies.
4 Conclusion
The sound absorption property of natural fibers was superi-
or to synthetic fibers such as glass and carbon fibers due to
their unique hollow and multi scale structures. Natural fiber
reinforced composites also possessed better acoustic ab-
sorption behavior than synthetic fiber reinforced composite,
especially at high frequencies, which might be very benefi-
cial for the aeronautical applications. The theoretical predi-
Density (g/cm3) Porosity (%)
1.12 17.66
1.09 16.78
1.04 18.26
2.07 4.08
1.55 2.14
 Yang W D, et al. Sci China Tech Sci
cation values obtained from Garai-Pompoli model and
Delany-Bazley model showed good agreement with the
experimental results, which implied that the sound absorp-
tion coefficient of natural fibers and their composites can be
predicted by these two models.
This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of Chi-
na (“973” Program) (Grant No. 2010CB631105).
10
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