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Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 601608 (2015) DOI: 10.1515/aoa-2015-0060
Technical Notes
Azma PUTRA(1), (2) , Fazlin Abd KHAIR(2) , Mohd Jailani Mohd NOR(1)
(1)
Centre for Advanced Research on Energy, Vibro Acoustics Research Group?
Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka
Hang Tuah Jaya, Durian Tunggal Melaka 76100, Malaysia; e-mail: azma.putra@utem.edu.my
(2)
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka
Hang Tuah Jaya, Durian Tunggal Melaka 76100, Malaysia;
e-mail: fazlinabdkhair@student.utem.edu.my
Studies to nd alternative low environmental-impact materials for acoustic absorbers are still pro-
gressing, particularly those originated from natural materials. However, most of the established works are
mainly focused on the brous-type absorbers. Discussion on the non-brous-type absorbers is still lacking
and this therefore becomes the objective of this paper. Use of bamboo by utilizing its hollow structure to
absorb sound energy is discussed here. The normal incidence absorption coecient was measured based
on the length and diameter of the bamboo, as well as dierent arrangement of the bamboo structure sub-
jected to the incidence sound, namely, axial, transverse, and crossed-transverse arrangements. The trend
of absorption coecient appears in peaks and dips at equally spacing frequencies. For all arrangements
the peak of absorption can reach above 0.8. Introducing an air gap behind the bamboo shifts the peak
absorption to lower frequency. Covering the front surface of the absorber improves the sound absorption
coecient for axial arrangement by widening the frequency range of absorption also towards lower fre-
quency range. The transverse arrangement is found to have average absorption coecient peaks of 0.7
above 1.5 kHz. By arranging the bamboo structure with crossed-transverse arrangement, the suppressed
absorption peaks in normal transverse arrangement can be recovered.
Keywords: bamboo, hollow structure, acoustic absorber, absorption coecient.
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istic as the glass wool of density 32 kg/m3 . The ab- Several works have also been discussed on the uti-
sorption coecient ranges from 0.9 to unity at fre- lization of wasted bres or by-product bres. Erin-
quency above 1 kHz. Azevedo and Nabuco (2005) ingsih (2009) nds that ramie wasted bres can have
studied the sound absorption of sisal bres. Results sound the absorption coecient of roughly 0.7 above
show that for sample thickness of 50 mm and den- 0.5-3 kHz.
sity of 40 kg/m3 , sisal bres have absorption coef- Sound absorption from the by-product tea leaf -
cient greater than 0.8 at frequency above 800 Hz bres was studied by Ersoy and Kucuk (2009). It is
and are comparable with breglass of the same thick- found that 20 mm of thick layers of rigidly backed tea
ness and density. Fatima and Mohanty (2011) found leaf bres and non-woven bre materials exhibit almost
that jute bres with 1% alkali solutions treatment equivalent sound absorption in the frequency range be-
has absorption coecient of 0.71 at frequency above tween 500 Hz and 3.2 kHz.
500 Hz. The potential of paddy wasted bres as acoustic
Yang et al. (2003) measured the absorption co- material was studied by Putra et al. (2013a). The
ecient of rice straw wood particles composite and eect of density of the paddy bres on sound ab-
found that a sample with the specic gravity of 0.4 sorption properties was investigated. It is discovered
shows the highest absorption coecient above 0.6 at that as the bre weight is increased to 5 grams with
the frequency above 2 kHz. A similar study is pre- a 20 mm thickness (density is increased), the sound
sented by Stumpf Gonzalez et al. (2013) where com- absorption coecient is more than 0.5 above 500 Hz
bination of 50% of waste rice husk with mortars shows and almost constant at 0.8 in average above 2 kHz.
a better sound absorption than that of waste from By increasing the density further, considerable reduc-
plywood formworks and thermoplastic shoe counters tion of sound absorption is observed as this reduces
with the absorption coecient of 0.55 at frequency the ow resistivity. A use of fabric as the facing for
2 kHz. the sample is also found to signicantly improve the
Study on the acoustic characteristics of coir bres sound absorption. In another study for wasted bres
was rst conducted by Fouladi et al. (2010) by back- from the sugarcane bagasse, Putra et al. (2013b)
ing the brous panel with a perforated plate. The tech- shows that a 13 mm thick sugarcane bre sample
nique is found to reduce the air gap behind the sample can have absorption coecient of around 0.65 above
required to produce the similar acoustical performance 1.2 kHz. This is also shown to be comparable with
(with a larger air gap). A similar study was continued the performance of the glass wool of the same thick-
by Zulkifli et al. (2010) by backing the coir bres ness.
with woven cloth cotton. The absorption coecient of The study of natural materials utilizing their non-
a 20 mm thick sample increases considerably at 1.5 brous structure to absorb sound is still limited ac-
4 kHz. cording to the authors knowledge, especially on the
Ismail et al. (2010) showed that Arenga pinnata unmodied natural material with a hollow structure.
from palm sugar tree has good acoustic properties at The most recent work is presented by Oldham et al.
the frequency between 25 kHz with the absorption (2011) which utilizes the hollow structure of reed to
coecient above 0.7 for the thickness of 40 mm. This trap the sound energy. Multiple reed stems were ar-
palm sugar bre can be categorized as a hard bre, ranged so that the cross section of the hollow faced
which has a similar physical characteristics to the coir the incident sound. With the 14 cm length of a stem,
bre. That explains why it is dicult to obtain a good the absorption coecient measured in a reverberation
absorption coecient below 2 kHz, unless the thickness chamber is almost unity above 250 Hz up to 4 kHz.
of the panel is increased. Similar to Oldham et al. (2011), this paper
Bastos et al. (2012) fabricated sound absorber presents utilization of the hollow structure of a bamboo
panels from various natural bres including those from as a mechanism for sound absorption. The impedance
acai, palm, sisal, and coconut. The samples were tested tube testing was used to measure the normal incidence
in a scaled reverberant chamber, and results show a sound absorption. Samples of bamboo were tested for
good performance of the sound absorption for all - dierent lengths of bamboo stem and dierent hollow
bres. The acai bre shows the highest absorption co- diameters.
ecient close to unity at the frequency range of 1.25
1.5 kHz.
2. Measurement of normal incidence absorption
Asdrubali et al. (2014) measured the acoustic
properties of various tropical plants namely fern, baby coefficient
tears, begonia, maidenhair fern, and ivy. Random in- 2.1. Materials preparation
cidence test in a reverberation room reveals that high
density of fern and baby tears are good in absorbing Bamboos are well-know plants in Asia and have
sound with the absorption coecient of unity at the become the economic and cultural parts of the region.
frequency range of 0.81.6 kHz. Not only as sources of food, bamboos are also used as
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A. Putra, F.A. Khair, M.J.M. Nor Utilizing Hollow-Structured Bamboo as Natural Sound Absorber 603
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604 Archives of Acoustics Volume 40, Number 4, 2015
3. Result and discussion length. For example, the rst peak at around 1.3
1.4 kHz for the sample of the length of 6 cm corre-
3.1. Axial arrangement sponds to 41 = 6 cm f1 = c/ = 343/(0.24) =
3.1.1. Eect of diameter and length 1429 Hz, where c is the speed of sound in the air, i.e.
343 m/s. The second frequency is at f2 = 2f1 , which is
A sample of bamboos with two dierent ranges of the dip at 2.6 kHz, and the second peak appears again
diameter as in Subsec. 2.1 were tested in the impedance at f2 = 3f1 .
tube. Results of the absorption coecient in Fig. 5
show that small diameter bamboos absorb more sound 3.1.2. Eect of air gap
energy than those with a large diameter. With a small
diameter, greater quantity of bamboo to t in the The results on the eect of an air gap behind the
impedance tube increases the absorption of sound en- samples are plotted in Fig. 7 for dierent stem lengths
ergy. The absorption coecient of 2 cm long bamboos of 2, 4, and 6 cm. As expected for similar arrangement
can be seen to achieve 0.95 at 3.6 kHz, and that of for natural ber, the air gap can be seen to lower the
3 cm long bamboos is 0.99 at the lower frequency of frequency of the absorption peak. Introduction of an
2.3 kHz. The results for mixed diameter samples can air gap is useful for controlling the peak of absorption
be seen to lie between those of the large and small to the low frequency region without having to add the
diameter samples. length of the stem. However, the frequency target for
sound reduction must be ensured not to fall in the dip
area where absorption coecient is minimum.
a)
b)
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A. Putra, F.A. Khair, M.J.M. Nor Utilizing Hollow-Structured Bamboo as Natural Sound Absorber 605
b)
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a)
b)
b)
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A. Putra, F.A. Khair, M.J.M. Nor Utilizing Hollow-Structured Bamboo as Natural Sound Absorber 607
a)
a)
b)
b)
4. Conclusion
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608 Archives of Acoustics Volume 40, Number 4, 2015
to lower frequency by adding the air gap behind the 8. Fatima S., Mohanty A.R. (2011), Acoustical and
bamboo. re-retardant properties of jute composit materials, Ap-
The results presented in this paper are for condition plied Acoustics, 72, 108114.
where sound incidence is normal to the surface of the 9. Fouladi M.H., Ayub Md., Nor M.J.M. (2011),
absorber. To have more representative results as those Analysis of coir ber acoustical characteristics, Applied
in practice, results from random incidence test inside Acoustics, 72, 3542.
a reverberation chamber are of interest. 10. Ismail L., Ghazali M.I., Mahzan S., Zaidi A.M.A.
(2010), Sound absorption of Arenga pinnata ber,
World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technol-
Acknowledgments
ogy, 67, 804806.
This project is funded by the Ministry of Hig- 11. ISO (2011), ISO 10534-2 Acoustic determination of
her Education, (MoHE), Malaysia under the Ex- sound absorption coecient and impedance tubes part
ploratory Research Grant Scheme no. ERGS/1/2013/ 2: transfer function method.
STG02/UTEM/02/01 and Universiti Teknikal Malay- 12. Joshi S.V., Drzal L.T., Mohanty A.K., Arora S.
sia Melaka (UTeM) for nancial support and also to (2004), Are natural ber composites environmentally
Kalthom Husain, Centre For Language of Human De- superior to glass ber reinforced composites?, Compos-
velopment, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka who ites, 35, 371376.
helped out in the language presentation of this journal. 13. Koizumi T., Tsujiuchi N., Adachi A. (2002), The
development of sound absorbing materials using nat-
ural bamboo bers, High Performance Structures and
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