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Sound absorption characteristics of needle-punched

sustainable Typha /polypropylene non-woven
a a a a
Meghdad Kamali Moghaddam , Somayeh Safi , Sanaz Hassanzadeh & Sayed Majid Mortazavi
a
Faculty of Textile Engineering, Department of Textile Engineering, Isfahan University of
Technology, Isfahan, Iran
Published online: 02 Mar 2015.

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To cite this article: Meghdad Kamali Moghaddam, Somayeh Safi, Sanaz Hassanzadeh & Sayed Majid Mortazavi (2015): Sound
absorption characteristics of needle-punched sustainable Typha /polypropylene non-woven, The Journal of The Textile
Institute, DOI: 10.1080/00405000.2015.1016346

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 The Journal of The Textile Institute, 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00405000.2015.1016346

Sound absorption characteristics of needle-punched sustainable Typha /polypropylene

non-woven
Meghdad Kamali Moghaddam*, Somayeh Safi, Sanaz Hassanzadeh and Sayed Majid Mortazavi
Faculty of Textile Engineering, Department of Textile Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran
(Received 1 November 2014; accepted 26 January 2015)

Natural fibers are the acoustical sustainable materials used in blends with polypropylene as carded needle-punched
non-woven for the automobile industry. Among the variety of natural fibers, studying the noise-absorptive properties of
a novelty introduced fiber called Leafiran extracted from the Typha Australis plant has been aimed in this paper. Typha
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natural fibers were blended with polypropylene fibers in order to investigate the effect of this newly known natural fiber
on the acoustic performance of producing non-woven composite structures. For this aim, five different blend ratios of
Typha/polypropylene including 0:100, 30:70, 50:50, 70:30, and 100:0 were prepared. The non-woven porosity, areal
density, and sound absorption properties were studied. Impedance Tube Method, which provides the normal incidence
sound absorption coefficient (SAC) of materials, was used for determining the acoustic properties of produced
non-woven samples. The results of SACs of Typh\a non-woven revealed that the Typha fibers have good acoustic
performance with normal incidence absorption coefficient greater than 0.6 from 500 to 4 kHz. Finally, according to the
obtained results from this research, it is claimed that Typha natural fibers could be an acceptable choice for sound
reduction applications.
Keywords: acoustic performance; composite; Leafiran; natural fibers; sound absorption coefficient

Introduction thickness of the assembly (Aso & Kinoshita, 1964). The

Recent population growth and industrial advancements
have resulted in a variety of activities that play an
important role in noise problems enhancement
(Karlinasari, Hermawan, & Maddu, 2012). Noise
pollution refers to any kind of undesired sound in any
environment. In order to control unwanted effects of
noise, and to meet regulations, the sound intensity
should be brought down to a level that is not harmful to
human ears (Seddeq, 2009). Among the variety of
techniques used for the sound waves’ energy reduction
(means the sound absorption) using non-woven fabric as
porous absorber is both technically and economically
one of the most extensive means. These fibrous
structures due to their porosity, low mass and cost are
capable of sound absorption and thus are widely
accepted as sound absorptive materials (Wang & Torng,
2001). The ability of fibrous structures to absorb sound
or unwanted noise is based on dissipation of the energy
of the sound wave due to viscosity and heat conductivity
of the medium (Karlinasari et al., 2012). Sound
absorption coefficient (SAC) is a simple way of defining
the sound absorption behavior of the surface. There are
several factors affecting the sound absorption
characteristics of fiber assemblies such as length,
fineness, the surface characteristics, and elasticity of the
constituent fibers, the porosity, the fiber orientation, and
typical absorption characteristics of fiber assembly are
shown in Figure 1, where Type (I) is the viscosity
resistance type and is the common type of absorption
characteristics of fibrous materials. Type (II) is a fibrous
resonance type that has a peak at a low frequency, and
the Type III is an intermediate type that shows resonance
absorption without peak.
Since the non-woven is made up of fibers, so the
fiber characteristics have a significant effect on sound
absorption. The fiber parameters that affect the acoustic
properties of non-woven include fiber type, fiber size,
and fiber shape. In practical application, most of the
fibrous sound absorption materials are comprised of
synthetic fibers. However, along with the introduction of
the green technology and using biodegradable materials,
researchers have been focused on finding the alternative
natural fibers which are friendlier to human health than
commonly used synthetic fibers (Asdrubali, Schiavoni, &
Horoshenkov, 2012; Karlinasari et al., 2012).
The researchers have reported the potential
applications of natural fibers for acoustic treatment in
many literatures. Ersoy and Kucuk (2009) examined the
acoustic performance of extracted fibers from the wastes
of tea leaves. They produced different woven structures
in various thicknesses from the prepared tea fibers and
employed them as a back coating on commonly used

*Corresponding author. Email: kamali@tx.iut.ac.ir

© 2015 The Textile Institute

 2 M.K. Moghaddam et al.
Figure 1. Typical absorption characteristics of fiber
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assemblies (Aso & Kinoshita, 1964)
absorbers. According to their results obtained at
frequencies of 500–3200 Hz, the acoustic performance of
a single-layer woven fabric containing the fibers
extracted from the waste of tea leaves seems to be equal
with the case in which six woven fabric layers in
double-thickness is used for coating the absorber.
Zulkifli (2009) and Nor, Ayub, and Zulkifli (2010)
studied the acoustic properties of non-woven structure
produced from coconut coarse fibers. They found that
using this type of fibers would improve the sound
absorbency at higher frequencies. The results of some
other studies conducted on date palm fibers revealed that
these fibers due to their acceptable acoustic properties
could be used as appropriate alternatives in different
areas of applications related to the sound pollution issues
(AL-Rahman, 2012; Nor et al., 2010; Zulkifli, 2009).
Kucuk and Korkmaz (2012) employed both the natural
and synthetic fibers in their investigations. They
produced non-woven structures from the blended fibers
in different ratios and analyzed the effect of natural fiber
component on the acoustic performance and sound
absorbency. From their studies, it was concluded that the
non-woven containing 70/30% cotton/polyester fibers
blend have the best SAC at medium to high-frequency
ranges. Veerakumar and Selvakumar (2012) presented a
novel composite of fibers including kapok and
polypropylene though their researches. They found that
non-woven produced from kapok/polypropylene fiber
blend with 30/70% blending ratio has an excellent sound
absorbency. Through other investigations performed on
the fibers extracted from straws of the paddy plant,
Mediastika (2008) reported that the presence of this fiber
within the fibrous structure, due to its high elasticity and
hollowness feature would significantly improve the
acoustic performance. Thilagavathi (2010) considered the
sound absorption of bamboo/polypropylene non-woven
and realized that it has a high absorption coefficient at
all frequency levels. Hassanzadeh, Hasani, and Zarrebini
(2014) investigated the effect of Estabragh (milkweed)
natural hollow fibers on SACs of non-woven produced
from Estabragh/polypropylene fibers blends. They found
that increasing the ratio of Estabragh fiber components
within the non-woven structure would significantly affect
the acoustic performance.
Even though many literatures have been focused on
various natural fibers and their non-woven composites for
acoustic material, in this study, a rarely known natural
fiber called Leafiran has been introduced as a leaf fiber for
development of new non-woven composite for lightweight
structures. Typha fibers are the cellulosic fibers obtained
from Typha Australis (Cattail) leaves (Mortazavi &
Moghadam, 2009, 2010). Typha is a perennial herbaceous
plant available abundantly in waterlogged areas and is
reproduction spreads rapidly by vegetative and generative
reproduction in temperature and tropical regions
worldwide (Ashok Kumar et al., 2013). This plant due to
its enormous rate and yield (15–20 tons of dry material per
hectare) is widely used in constructed wetlands for the
treatment of wastewater and contaminated soil
(Nilratnisakorn, Thiravetyan, & Nakbanpote, 2007). The
non-wood fibers of Typha were used for paper making
(Khider, Omer, & Taha, 2011; Sridach & Paladsongkhram,
2014), as reinforcement of composite (Garcia Santos,
2004; Ponnukrishnan, Chithambara Thanu, & Richard,
2014), and as insulation material (Schwemmer & GmbH,
2012; Vincent, 1962).
In order to investigate the effect of Typha fibers on
the sound absorption properties, lightly needled non-
woven of Typha/polypropylene fiber blends in five
different ratios was prepared. Details about the
experimental procedures and the produced samples’
characteristics are mentioned in the Materials and
Methods section. The results derived from the acoustic
investigation of this unconventional natural fiber would
lead to introduce such absorber materials, which could
be more efficient in a variety of applications including
transportation, buildings, automotive interior design, etc.
Material and methods
Fibers preparation
Typha is a natural organic fiber, which can be extracted
from the leaves of a plant called T. Australis
(Figure 2(a)). This plant can be found in wetlands or
along the streams, rivers, and the lakes. In general, the
extraction of fibers from the plants is possible during the
following stages: (1) retting the plants’ leaves within an
alkaline solution at 100 °C for two hours, (2)
neutralizing the alkaline effect by applying the acetic
acid solution on materials, and (3) washing the prepared
fibers with water and then drying them at room
temperature. Some of the Typha fibers’ characteristics
 The Journal of The Textile Institute 3
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Figure 2. (a) Digital image of Typha-treated fibers, (b) optical microscope, (c) scanning electron microscope of Typha fiber, and (d)
lightly needled non-woven structure produced from Typha fibers.

Table 1. Fiber characteristics. samples. Table 1 also contains some characteristics of

the used polypropylene.
Properties Typha Polypropylene
From Table 1, it can be directly found that Typha
Fiber length (mm) 80 ± 5.7 80 ± 4.8 fibers are relatively coarse and brittle than the
Fiber diameter (μm) 66.7 ± 12 62.8 ± 0.5 polypropylene fibers. For this reason, the intensity of
Fiber fineness (Tex) 4.4 ± 0.3 3.0 ± 0.2
impacts applied on the fiber surfaces during the carding
Density (g/cm3) 1.25 ± 0.1 0.91 ± 0.1
Breaking elongation (%) 1.7 ± 0.2 27 ± 1.2 operation would significantly damage Typha fibers and
Tenacity (cN/Tex) 30.0 ± 6.5 40.5 ± 3.4 results in fibers’ length reduction. In order to avoid this
problem, 20% volume fraction of a softening agent was
applied to the Typha fibers. The treated fibers that are
depicted in Figure 2 were then kept under the standard
are given in Table 1. More details about Typha fibers condition for 24 h.
properties are reported by Mortazavi and Moghaddam
(2009, 2010). In brief, Typha fibers have a higher
tenacity and elongation than that of pineapple and kenaf Non-woven productions
fibers and similar to that of jute fibers. This fiber has In order to prevent any undesirable damages and decrease
60–65% of crystallinity and can absorb moisture regain the probability of fibers’ length reduction, both Typha and
up to 9.5%. The controlled alkali treatment of Typha leaf polypropylene fibers were opened manually. Five different
cause to the partial removal of non-cellulosic substances blends of fibers comprised of 100, 70, 50, 30, and 0%
and resulted in fiber bundles (Figure 2(b) and (c)). Typha fibers were prepared and then fed into a laboratory-
In order to investigate the sound absorption carding machine. Finally, five different Typha/
properties of this newly known fiber, the blends of polypropylene-carded layers with the same areal densities
Typha/polypropylene fibers in five different ratios were were obtained which are listed in Table 2. Using a
prepared. The main reason of using polypropylene laboratory-needling machine, the lightly needled non-woven
known as a commonly used fiber for some acoustic structures from the prepared 50 × 70 cm2 web layers were
applications is getting an acceptable acoustic analyzing produced. Figure 2(d) shows a 100% Typha non-woven.
about the Typha fibers by changing its ratio within the Details of the needling operation are given in Table 3.
 4 M.K. Moghaddam et al.
!
Table 2. Typha/polypropylene-carded layers. q
h¼ 1 w  100; (1)
Ratio of fiber component in qf
carded layers
Layer where h is the porosity percentage (%), qw is the density
Samples code Typha Polypropylene
of the non-woven structure comprised of air spaces and
1 T0/PP100 0 100 fibers (kg/m3), and qf is the weighted average density of
2 T30/PP70 30 70 the constitutive fibers (kg/m3) which could be
3 T50/PP50 50 50 determined using the Equation (2):
4 T70/PP30 70 30
5 T100/PP0 100 0 ðX1 q1 þ X2 q2 Þ
qf ¼ ; (2)
T (%): the proportion of Typha natural fibers in the blends. X1 þ X2
PP (%): the proportion of polypropylene fibers in the blends.
where X1 and X2 are the Typha and polypropylene
component ratios within the non-woven structure,
Table 3. Details of needling operation. respectively. Also, q1 is the Typha fiber density and q2
Parameter Value is the polypropylene fiber density.
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Machine width 100 cm

Needle board length 60 cm
The speed of the layer advance 65 cm/min
Needle penetration depth 12 mm
Needle punch density 25 punch/cm2
Measuring the non-woven characteristics
The non-woven sample thicknesses were measured using
a thickness gauge (HansBaer-674, Switzerland) (ISO
9073-2:1995). The average values of 10 randomly
measurements for each structure are listed in Table 4.
For measuring the weights of Typha/polypropylene non-
woven, the Shimadzu weighing balance (LiBor AEU-
210) was used. Ten 5 × 5 cm2 samples of non-woven
were prepared separately and the average values samples
weights were reported. The produced non-woven weights
are also listed in Table 4.
To investigate the sound absorption properties of
porous materials, considering the porosity percentage as
well as the number and size of the pores within the
structure is of the importance. Non-woven structures are
commonly known as porous materials in which the pores
would be formed between the constitutive fibers.
The porosity of a porous material is simply defined as
the air volume fraction within the structure (Allard,
1989). According to ASTM C830-00 Standard test
methods, the porosity percentages of produced Typha/
polypropylene non-woven were calculated individually
using Equation (1):
Measuring the sound absorption
Sound absorption performance of a porous fibrous
material is generally evaluated according to either ASTM
E-1050-98 or ASTM C-348 (Normal Incidence Sound
Absorption) in which the Impedance Tube Method is
known as commonly used techniques (Hassanzadeh
et al., 2014; Soltani & Zarrebini, 2012). Moveable
microphone principles which are depicted in Figure 3
were used for measuring the SAC (a) of non-woven
samples. A microphone is moved along the length of the
tube during the test and measuring the sound wave at
various frequencies and calculating the amount of sound
reflected by the sample compared to the original wave
amplitude. The SAC is expressed between 0 and 1 and
determines the ability of materials in relation to the
acoustic energy absorption. According to the Figure 3,
the circular samples with 35 mm diameter were placed at
one end of the tube and the sound waves were
propagated from the speaker placed on the other end.
Using a signal generator, sound waves at different
frequencies of 250–4000 Hz could be obtained.
When a sound wave impinges the material surface, a
portion of its energy would be dissipated into the heat
and eventually the reflected sound wave with lower
energy would be sensed by the microphone. The amount
of reflected sound wave energy represents the quality of
material acoustic performance. Using Equation (3),

Table 4. Characteristics of needle-punched non-woven.

Samples Layer code Porosity (%) Thickness (mm) Areal density (g/m2) Non-woven density (g/cm3)
1 T0/PP100 86.50 ± 1.2 2.38 ± 0.2 293.88 ± 7.2 0.1214 ± 0.01
2 T30/PP70 87.90 ± 0.7 2.36 ± 0.4 278.60 ± 6.5 0.1232 ± 0.02
3 T50/PP50 88.54 ± 0.5 2.32 ± 0.3 265.95 ± 7.7 0.1255 ± 0.01
4 T70/PP30 90.30 ± 1.1 2.29 ± 0.3 259.50 ± 5.4 0.1077 ± 0.03
5 T100/PP0 91.10 ± 0.8 2.26 ± 0.5 258.46 ± 6.3 0.1040 ± 0.02
Mean ± Std. Deviation.
 The Journal of The Textile Institute 5
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Figure 3. Impedance tube with movable microphone principles.

standing wave ratio (SWR) was calculated using the fibers. The porosity of non-woven has been reported to
following relationship: range between 0.83 and 0.95 (Cox & D’antonio, 2004).
Considering the values of density for both Typha and
Pmax
SWR ¼ ; (3) polypropylene fibers (1.25 and 0.91 g/cm3, respectively),
Pmin
the porosity of non-woven produced from five different
where Pmax and Pmin are the maximum and minimum blends was calculated individually using Equation (2).
values of sound wave pressure, respectively, as shown The values are given in Table 4. The results show that
on an oscilloscope screen. the increase in Typha content in the composite increases
Moreover, the SAC of materials can be calculated: the porosity and decreases the areal density.
Ii jPi j2  jPr j2
SAC ¼ ¼ 2
¼ 1  jRj2 Acoustic characteristics
Ir
" jP i j #
ðSWR  1Þ2 4  SWR Investigation into the NRC of the non-woven structures
¼1 ¼ ; (4) produced from Typha/polypropylene fiber blends has
ðSWR þ 1Þ2 ðSWR þ 1Þ2
been considered in this research. Studies on various
where Ii and Ir are the intensities of incident and parameters that affect the acoustic performance of
reflected waves, respectively; Pi and Pr are the pressure fibrous porous materials reveal that some factors,
of the incident and reflected waves, respectively, and R including fiber fineness, the porosity percentage of the
is the reflectance factor. structure, thickness, and the areal density are of much
In the present investigation, the acoustic behavior of importance. The results of SAC for non-woven samples
the Typha/polypropylene non-woven was expressed as were separately measured at five different frequencies.
noise reduction coefficient (NRC). This single number The SAC values reported in Table 5 are of the 10
index was calculated using the following relationship: measurements averaging. It should be noted that the
values with the same superscript letters (in each row of
the table) are statistically similar (e.g. p > 0.05). The
ða250 þ a500 þ a1000 þ a2000 Þ
NRC ¼ : (5) results show that all the samples have a low SAC in the
4 low-frequency range (250–500 Hz) and high SAC at
middle and high frequency (1–4 kHz). According to
statistical analysis, each of samples has the same SAC at
Results and discussion
1–4 kHz (p > 0.05).
Physical properties Figure 4 shows the trend of SAC values of
Porosity is the ratio of open space volume to the total non-woven at five different frequencies. Using the given
volume of the porous material. The gravimetric diagrams, the SAC differences between the samples
measurement of the porosity requires the knowledge of could simply be recognized. Figure 4 shows that the
the volume of the porous material and the density of the absorption characteristics of samples belonged to a
 6 M.K. Moghaddam et al.
Table 5. SAC values of Typha/polypropylene non-woven.
Sample code
250
T0/PP100 0.64 ± 0.03a
T30/PP70 0.69 ± 0.05a
T50/PP50 0.79 ± 0.02a
T70/PP30 0.63 ± 0.05a
T100/PP0 0.62 ± 0.02a
Mean ± Std. Deviation.
a,b,c
Groups with the same superscript letters are statistically similar (p > 0.05).
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Figure 4. SAC differences vs. frequency
polypropylene non-woven.
fibrous resonance type (Type II). In the non-woven air,
space divides at random into small sections and is
distributed in the sample. Therefore, repeated sudden
enlargements and contractions of the sound wave while
traveling in a non-woven were occurring. This
phenomenon, as well as the friction between the
vibrating air and the fiber surface, resulted in the
damping of the sound wave. As mentioned in Table 4,
polypropylene non-woven had lower porosity (86.50%)
than Typha non-woven (91.10%). The experimental
results show that the polypropylene non-woven has the
higher SAC than Typha non-woven at a low frequency
(250–500 Hz). At a high frequency (1–4 kHz), however,
Typha non-woven has a higher SAC than polypropylene
non-woven. Surface properties of fibers and their
cross-sections play an important role. As it is known, the
cross-section areas of synthetic fibers strongly depend on
the cross-section shape of the spinneret holes. The
polypropylene fibers used in this study have a circular
cross-section, while the cross-section shape of Typha
fibers is polygon-like that is illustrated in Figure 5
SAC
Frequency (Hz)
500 1000 2000 4000
0.69 ± 0.04a 0.71 ± 0.03b 0.73 ± 0.06b 0.72 ± 0.04b
0.75 ± 0.04b 0.78 ± 0.05c 0.81 ± 0.03c 0.79 ± 0.02c
0.85 ± 0.04b 0.92 ± 0.01c 0.90 ± 0.02c 0.87 ± 0.04b
0.68 ± 0.03a 0.80 ± 0.03b 0.74 ± 0.06b,c 0.72 ± 0.03b,c
0.66 ± 0.05a 0.78 ± 0.02b 0.81 ± 0.04b 0.79 ± 0.02b
(Mortazavi & Moghaddam, 2010). The researchers show
that different fiber’s shapes result in various surface
areas and different surface areas lead to different viscous
and thermal effects (Cox & D’antonio, 2004). The large
fiber surface area results in great sound absorption
friction between fibers and air, so an irregular cross-
section of fibers increases the sound absorption
(Jayaraman, 2005; Narang, 1995). This result supported
by findings of Hur et.al who found that the fibers with
serrated cross-sections absorb more sound compared to
ones with a round cross-section area at the frequency
range 1125–5000 Hz (Hur, Park, Ha, & Um, 2005). The
statistical results show that the maximum value of SAC
occurred for Typha at frequency range of 1–2 kHz, for
polypropylene at 2–4 kHz, and for Typha/polypropylene
(50/50) at 750–1250 Hz.
As seen from Figure 4, the absorption curve of
for Typha/ Typha/polypropylene non-woven was shifted to the right,
higher frequency, with an increase in Typha component.
The logical explanation for this case is that the higher
porosity and lower airflow resistivity led to higher
frequency sound absorption. As it is known, the fiber
entanglement within the non-woven structure is strongly
affected by the fibers flexibility. According to the Typha
fiber characteristics, the brittleness feature of this rigid
fiber made them exhibit relatively inflexible nature (low
flexibility) in comparison with the polypropylene fibers.
Therefore, the carded layers produced from Typha fibers
are expected to have a low-tortuous path, a big size of
the pore, and lower airflow resistance. This point can
simply be proved by considering the porosity values
given in Table 4. In other hand, Typha fiber density is
higher than that of the polypropylene by about 37.4%.
Meaning Typha fibers are weighted more than the
polypropylene fibers by considering the same fibers’
volume. Therefore, the two non-woven samples with the
same areal densities but different fiber blends, would
have different numbers of fibers within their structures.
The samples comprised of a higher proportion of Typha
fibers contain a few numbers of fibers than these samples
produced from fiber blend with a higher proportion of
 The Journal of The Textile Institute
Figure 5. Optical microscopic image of (a) polypropylene fiber and (b) Typha fiber cross-section (bar = 20 μm).
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Figure 6. Effect of Typha ratio on noise reduction coefficient
of non-woven.
polypropylene fibers. Increasing the numbers of Typha
fibers within a fibrous material leads to creating less-
dense structure, which in turn results in lower sound
absorbency especially at high frequencies.
Figure 4 shows that the non-woven comprised of 50/
50 Typha/polypropylene fibers blend exhibits the highest
acoustic performance. Increasing the ratio of Typha
fibers within the non-woven layers up to 50% has
increased the sound absorbency, while the more
enhancements in Typha fiber component would
significantly decrease the acoustic performance. The
logical explanation for this phenomenon can be
investigated from two different aspects. Considering both
non-flexible nature of Typha and constitutive fiber
reduction within the fibrous structure, would result in
obtaining the less-dense structures and large pore size by
increasing the Typha fibers’ ratio, which in turn could
Table 6. SAC of Typha and some natural fibers at 500 Hz (Desarnaulds, 2005).
Material Hemp Kenaf
Absorption coefficient 0.60 0.74
Non-woven thickness (cm) 30 5.0
7
undesirably affect the acoustic performance of
non-woven. However, as it is illustrated in Figure 5, the
polygon-like cross-section of Typha fibers compared to
the circular cross-section of polypropylenes would
provide much more surface areas which results in
changing the frictional behavior of non-woven structures.
The energy of sound waves would be dissipated while
passing through the fibrous structure due to the frictional
losses behavior (Jayaraman, 2005; Sengupta, 2009;
WeiDong & Yan, 2012); so from this point of view,
increasing the ratio of Typha fibers would significantly
increase the sound absorption properties. The two
mentioned opposite aspects in this investigation would
eventually result in appearing an optimum condition in
which the sound absorbency has the highest value.
According to Figure 4, this optimum condition is
concluded for non-woven produced from 50/50% Typha/
polypropylene fiber blend. Moreover, The reduction in
SAC values at a frequency of 4 kHz relates to less-dense
structures of non-woven (Jayaraman, 2005).
In Figure 6, the acoustic performance of non-woven
is stated as NRC, which is the average value of four
different SAC measurements for samples individually.
Using this diagram, the comparison of acoustic
performance between the samples could be easily
possible. Similar to the previous results, non-woven
produced from Typha/polypropylene fiber blend (50/50)
has the highest NRC value. The same result was
achieved by Sengupta (2009) whose study was
performed on needle-punched jute/polypropylene
non-woven. They found that the maximum sound
absorbency would be provided if jute/polypropylene
fibers blend (50/50) were employed.
The experimental results indicated that the Typha
non-woven with low thickness (2.26 mm) has a higher
Coco Sheep wool Cork Typha
0.42 0.38 0.39 0.66
4.0 6.0 4.0 0.23
 8 M.K. Moghaddam et al.
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Figure 7. SAC of Typha and natural fibers (Ismail, Ghazali,
Mahzan, & Ziadi, 2010; WeiDong & Yan, 2012).
SAC at frequency 500 Hz as compared to some natural
fibers (see Table 6). Furthermore, investigation into the
acoustic properties of some natural fibers in the
frequency range of 250–2 kHz showed that the SAC of
Typha fibers was comparable with other natural fibers
that the thickness was around 3 mm (see Figure 7). The
SAC of Typha is higher than that of Arenga and Flax
and is near to coir fiber.
Conclusion
In this study, Typha fiber has been introduced as a leaf
fiber for development of new acoustic non-woven
composite for lightweight structures. Since natural fibers
are used in blends with polypropylene fibers in the
automobile industry, in this study, the Typha and
polypropylene non-woven composites with different
proportion were fabricated. The results of SAC and
NRC for Typha/polypropylene non-woven showed that
the acoustic performance of samples was strongly
affected by the proportion of the constitutive fibers
individually. Sound absorption properties of samples
would greatly increase as the Typha fibers component
increase. The presence of Typha fibers with polygon-like
cross-sections would increase the frictional behavior of
the fibrous structure, which in turn results in more
sound energy losses. The results totally indicated that
the presence of Typha natural fibers within the non-
woven samples would significantly increase the acoustic
performance at frequency 1–2 kHz. The experimental
results show that the absorption coefficient of Typha and
polypropylene is 0.6–0.8 and 0.6–0.7 at frequency range
of 250–2 kHz, respectively. While, the composite of
Typha/polypropylene (50:50) had the absorption
coefficient about 0.8–0.9 at frequency range of
250–2 kHz. The results of this study showed that
non-woven comprised of Typha natural fibers could be
considered as relatively acceptable alternatives for other
commonly known absorber materials can be used in
some sectors of technical textiles because of their
excellent sound absorption, ease of availability and
processability, recyclability, and biodegradability.
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