Acoustical properties of nonwoven fiber network structures

Sound insulation is one of the most important issues for the automotive and building industries. Because they are porous fibrous structures, textile materials can be used as sound insulating and sound absorbing materials. Very high-density materials such as steel can insulate sound very effectively but these rigid materials reflect most of the sound back to the environment, causing sound pollution. Additionally, because high-density, rigid materials are also heavy and high cost, they cannot be used for sound insulation for the automotive and building industries. Nonwoven materials are more suitable for these industries, and they can also absorb sound in order to decrease sound pollution in the environment. Therefore, nonwoven materials are one of the most important materials for sound insulation and absorption applications materials.; Insulation and absorption properties of nonwoven fabrics depend on fiber geometry and fiber arrangement within the fabric structure. Because of their complex structure, it is very difficult to define the microstructure of nonwovens. The structure of nonwovens only has fibers and voids that are filled by air. Because of the complexity of fiber-void geometry, there is still not a very accurate theory or model that defines the structural arrangement. A considerable amount of modeling has been reported in literature [1--19], but most models are not accurate due to the assumptions made. Voids that are covered by fibers are called pores in nonwoven structures and their geometry is very important, especially for the absorption properties of nonwovens. In order to define the sound absorption properties of nonwoven fabrics, individual pore structure and the number of pores per unit thickness of the fabric should be determined.; In this research, instead of trying to define pores, the properties of the fibers are investigated and the number of fibers per volume of fabric is taken as a parameter in the theory. Then the effect of the nonwoven structure for sound insulation is found qualitatively. Finally, the suggestions for the quantitative method are given as a future recommendation.