OKRA

The yield per cent was calculated as per the equation

expressed by Chakma2, that the yield of fibers (R%) is
measured by the percentage of the ratio between the final
mass of the fibers after extraction process (Mf) and that of the
plant before extraction process (Mi), which is given in
Equation(4) R (%) = (Mf /Mi) x100. Fibre yield was only four
percent of the weight of green plant.

The requisites for Fiber Extraction: The retting process

required 10 days for initial soaking and 5 days for final retting.
For drying it took 2 days in bright sun light and open air. So
the complete fiber extraction process required 17 days. About
200 litres of water and 9 labours were involved for the
complete.
 TEXTILE MATERIALS - ACOUSTICS
When the acoustics impedance at the surface of the sound
absorbers matches that of the medium, the sound is not reflected
back to the medium, and this makes it possible to dissipate
acoustic energy in the absorbers. To maximize the acoustic energy
dissipation inside the absorbers, various physical effects can be
used, such as viscous along the boundaries, heat exchanges,
mechanical vibration, magnetic and electrical damping. For the
textile materials, although a lot of factors such as fibre type,
material thickness, fibre size, porosity, density, tortuosity and
compression can affect the sound absorption of the material, there
is no direct simple relationship between the value of the sound
absorption coefficient and these factors.

THICKNESS
Thickness of textile structures is one of the important parameters
affecting the sound absorption. If the acoustics impedance at the
surface of the textile structures matches that of the medium, the
sound is not reflected back to the medium, then the thicker the
structure is, the larger its sound absorption will be. To have
effective sound absorption in the structure under this condition, the
thickness of the structure should be at least one-tenth of the
wavelength of the incident sound wave.

FIBRE SIZE
The flow resistivity is inversely proportional to the squared fibre
diameter. This implies that finer fibres would result in high flow
resistivity if all other parameters of the structure remain the same.

POROSITY
However, large porosity does not necessarily result in small flow
resistivity of the structures, and small flow resistivity of the
structures does not necessarily result in large sound absorption.
On the other hand, if the porosity of the structure is small, the flow
resistivity of the structures might be large, the characteristic
impedance and propagation constant of the structure might differ
from those in the medium significantly, so the sound absorption of
the structure might be small.

COMPRESSION
however, compression does not necessarily result in small sound
absorption. Usually, compression increases sound absorption in
the low frequency range at the cost of reducing sound absorption
in the high frequency range.

AIR FLOW RESISTANCE

The acoustic absorption of a porous material is greatly influenced
by the airflow resistance. The interlacement of threads in a woven
structure or intermeshing of fibres in a nonwoven structure
provides a resistance to the passage of air, which is an intrinsic
property of the textiles. The airflow resistance is measured in
terms of the resistance provided by the material per unit thickness.

APPLICATIONS
To determine whether it is necessary to treat surfaces in a room
with acoustically absorbing materials, the first step is to determine
whether the reverberant sound field dominates the direct sound
field at the point where it is desired to reduce the overall sound
pressure level because treating reflecting surfaces with
acoustically absorbing material can only affect the reverberant
sound field [5]. At locations close to the sound source (for
example, a machine operator’s position) it is likely that the direct
field of the sound source dominates, so it might be little
improvement in treating a factory with sound absorbing material to
protect operators from noise levels produced by their own
machines. However, if an operator is affected by noise produced
by other machines some distance away then treatment may be
appropriate.
The application of natural fibres in acoustic control is now
gaining impetus due to the environmental concerns
associated with synthetic materials [2, 3]. Some of the natural
fibres used for acoustic applications are, flax, hemp, kenaf,
jute, agave, bamboo, coir (plant based), and wool (animal
based) [2, 4, 3]. Examples of the synthetic fibres used in
acoustic applications are polypropylene (PP), polyester (PET),
viscose, bi-component, etc.

Nonwoven fabrics can be used in car interior components (head

liners, doors, side panels and trunk liners) to prevent noise from
reaching the passenger compartment and so achieving comfort in
the car interior [33]. Two kinds of fibres (polyester and hollow
polyester fibres, both six denier) were used to produce three
different fabrics (100 % polyester fibres, 75 % polyester/25 %
hollow polyester fibres and 55 % polyester/45 % hollow polyester
fibres)

In addition to the above advantages and disadvantages related to

natural and synthetic fibres, the mineral fibres (rockwool and
fibreglass) used for acoustic applications are associated with
health hazards. These fibres are carcinogenic to human and can
cause respiratory problems. Hence, these fibres are gradually
being replaced with the synthetic or blends of synthetic and natural
fibres.

The advantages of using natural fibres in acoustic

applications include:
• Low level of pollution,
• Reduced carbon emission,
• Safer than glass fibres as these fibres are free from respiratory
diseases or skin irritation, and
• Reduced waste as natural fibres are biodegradable.
The disadvantages of using natural fibres in acoustic
applications include,
• Lower tenacity,
• High variability in the fibre properties depending on the
geographical location and weather,
• High moisture regain properties cause swelling of the fibre,
• Limitations in terms of durability and flame retardancy, and
• High variation in the prices of the raw materials.

Parikh et al. [6] studied the acoustic properties of needle-punched

natural fibre nonwovens for automotive floor covering systems.
Natural fibres (kenaf, jute, waste cotton and flax) were blended
with PET and PP in 35/35/30 ratios, whereas PET/PP were
blended in 70/30 ratios. The area weights of the samples were in
the range of 730–1062 g/m2 , whereas, the thickness were in the
range of 8–10.10 mm. Authors evaluated NAC values in the
frequency range of 100–3200 Hz and observed that with the
addition of a cotton and poly urethane (PU) under pad along with
the above nonwoven blends increased the NAC values. For a
kenaf/PET/PP blend, the NAC values at 700, 1200, 2200 and 3200
Hz were 0.07, 0.14, 0.31 and 0.54, respectively. The
corresponding NAC values at above frequencies with cotton under
pad were 0.13, 0.27, 0.59 and 0.81, respectively. Similarly, the
NAC values for PU under pad were 0.28, 0.54, 0.89 and 1.00,
respectively. These results show that, with the addition of an under
pad, the NAC values increases.
Thilagavathi HOD textileset al. [5] studied the acoustic
properties of natural fibre nonwovens made from bamboo, banana
and jute fibres blended with PP fibres in 50:50 blends for
automotive interior applications. The authors have studied the
NAC values in the frequency range of 100–1600 Hz. NAC values
of bamboo/PP was the highest as compared to banana/PP and
jute/PP in the above frequency range. At 1250 Hz, the NAC values
for bamboo/PP, banana/PP and jute/PP were 0.20, 0.13 and 0.17,
respectively.

GO through these List of Journals on ACOUSTICS

1. IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language
Processing
2. Ultrasonics Sonochemistry
3. Journal of Sound and Vibration
4. Journal of Physics D—Applied Physics
5. Journal of Vibration and Acoustics, Transactions of the
ASME
6. IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and
Frequency Control
7. Synthesis Lectures on Speech and Audio Processing
8. Ultrasonics
9. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
10. Journal of Computational Acoustics
11. Applied Acoustics
12. Acta Acustica united with Acustica
13. Zhendong yu Chongji/Journal of Vibration and Shock
14. International Journal of Aeroacoustics
15. Medical Ultrasonography
16. Zhendong Gongcheng Xuebao/Journal of Vibration
Engineering
17. Phonetica
18. Zhendong Ceshi Yu Zhenduan/Journal of Vibration,
Measurement and
Diagnosis
19. Noise Control Engineering Journal
20. Archives of Acoustics
21. Acoustical Physics
22. Acoustics Australia
23. Acoustical Science and Technology
24. International Journal of Acoustics and Vibrations
25. Building Acoustics
26. Yadian Yu Shengguang/Piezoelectrics and Acoustooptics
27. Journal of Low Frequency Noise Vibration and Active
Control
28. Advances in Acoustics and Vibration
29. Larmbekampfung
30. Romanian Journal of Acoustics and Vibration
31. Noise and Vibration Worldwide
Acoustic Textiles: An Introduction 27
32. Eurasip Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing
33. Shengxue Xuebao/Acta Acustica
34. Synthesis Lectures on Antennas
35. Canadian Acoustics—Acoustique Canadienne
36. Akustika
37. Acoustics Bulletin
38. IUTAM Bookseries
39. Fluid Dynamics
40. Journal of Voice
41. Physics of Fluids
42. Sound and Vibration magazine
43. Technical Acoustics
44. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
45. Theoretical and Computational Fluid Dynamics.