DEPARTMENT OF TEXTILE TECHNOLOGY

PSG COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY

15T820 – PROJECT WORK II

Investigation on Thermal and Sound Insulation Properties of Areca

husk fiber / Low Melt PET Needle Punched Nonwovens

PROJECT GUIDE
Dr . N. Muthukumar
PRESENTED BY
BATCH 12
Kishore Kumar S T (18T112)
Dinesh Kumar S (18T210)
Nithin K (18T222)
 Introduction
• As the environmental degradation increasing day by day , the interest for
sustainable product increases .So that natural wastes are transformed into useful
products
• The effective utilization of the natural fibre in various applications is gradually
increasing due to their environment friendliness.
• This type of alterative materials must contribute to development of green building
materials and conserve environment, as they are recyclable and biodegradable.
• It will also help to minimize the carbon foot print, during disposing-off the
samples after their service life.
 Problem definition

• As a global annual production,

10.73 lakhs areca nuts are being
harvested and approximately 2.5 g
of areca husk could be extracted
from each nut.
• These extracted husks were thrown
as waste.
• Areca fibers have not been studied
for thermal and sound insulation
applications. Statistics of world natural fibre production (in tonnes)
 Need for the study
• In a smart and energy efficient building, thermal and sound insulation material
plays a major role.
• The insulation materials are popularly used in modern structures are made of
manmade chemicals like polystyrene, polyurethane foam, rubber sheet, glass, rock
wool, etc.
• These materials have several limitations pertaining to health and environment
during their manufacturing and usage.
• As per the Building Thermal Insulation Market report in year 2011, mineral
wool and plastics have 52% and 41% world market share, respectively.
• The building thermal insulation market was valued at USD 23.89 billion in 2016,
and is projected to reach to USD 29.62 billion by 2022.
 Objectives
• To develop needle punched nonwoven from agricultural waste (Areca husk fiber)
and low melt PET.
• To characterize the physical properties of the developed nonwovens.
• To characterize the developed nonwovens for sound and thermal insulation
application.
• To investigate the influence of low melt PET blend percentage on thermal
insulation and sound insulation performance of the developed nonwovens.
• To analyze the biodegradability of the developed nonwovens.
METHODOLOGY
 Sourcing of Areca and Low melt PET

 100%Areca
Non-woven web preparation   90%Areca+10% low melt PET
 80%Areca+20% low melt PET
 70%Areca+30% low melt PET

Development of needle punched nonwoven

Hot Calendaring
 GSM
 Thickness
 Density
Characterization of developed nonwovens  Porosity
 Air permeability

Evaluation of thermal and sound insulation properties

of the developed nonwovens

Analysis of Biodegradability
 Materials
Areca husk fiber
• Areca fibers used for this investigation are sourced from Avinashilingam
University, Coimbatore.
Low melt PET
• Low melt polyester fibers were sourced from Sulochana textiles,Tirupur.
• Low melt polyester (PET) fibers had a length of 50 mm and a thermal bonding
temperature of 120ºC.
 Fibre properties

S.no Fibre Properties Areca Low melt PET

1 Fibre length 40 mm 50mm

2 Moisture regain 7% 0.36%

3 Fibre diameter 28 - 46µm 5 (denier)

Breaking strength
4 1.97 3.20
(CN/dtex)
 Needle punching
• The webs are needle punched into nonwovens after they have been formed into
webs.
• The DILO NEEDLE PUNCHING MACHINE punches three webs into a single
nonwoven.
• The needle punching machine has a needle bed with several needles that
penetrate and bind the webs together.
• A stroke is a single cycle of needle penetration into the webs.
• The machine’s parameters were set to punch density of 350 and a penetration
depth of 10mm.
• After that, the developed nonwovens are calendered in a hot calendering machine
to compress the needle punched web.
 Hot calendaring

• Under high pressure applied by compound levers or hydraulic or pneumatic

equipment, the rolls are bearing one on the other.
• The developed nonwoven samples were passed through hot calendar rollers
maintained 1200C and 150 psi pressure at a speed of 5 m/min.
Developed
nonwoven 100% Areca 90% Areca+ 10% low melt PET
samples

80% Areca+ 20% low melt PET 70% Areca+ 30% low melt PET
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Properties of needle punched nonwoven samples

Density
Thickness Areal
S.No Sample description (g/cm3) Porosity(%)
(mm) density

1 100% Areca 2.9 504 0.1730 80

2 90% Areca + 10 %Low melt PET 2.2 490 0.222 76

3 80% Areca + 20 %Low melt PET 2.37 585 0.2460 75

4 70% Areca + 30 %Low melt PET 2.23 512 0.2291 78

 Air permeability
AIR PERMEABILITY
Air permeability
S.no Sample description (cm3/cm2/s)
80
70.56

Air permeability in cm3/cm2/sec

100% Areca 70
1 70.56
60
54.6
90% Areca + 10 %Low
2 54.6
50 47.9
melt PET
40 37.74
80% Areca + 20 %Low
3 47.9
melt PET 30

70% Areca + 30 %Low 20

4 37.74
melt PET 10

0
A B C D
AIR PERMEABILITY
 Thermal conductivity
Thermal Conductivity
Conductivity 0.04
S.no Sample description 0.036
(W/mk) 0.035
0.032
0.033

Thermal conductivity in W/mk

100% Areca 0.03 0.029
1 0.029
0.025
90% Areca + 10 %Low melt PET
2 0.032 0.02

0.015
80% Areca + 20 %Low melt PET
3 0.033 0.01

70% Areca + 30 %Low melt PET 0.005

4 0.036
0
A B C D

Thermal Conductivity
 Thermal Resistance
Thermal Resistance
Thermal
S.no Sample description resistance(m2K/W)
0.12

0.1

Thermal Resistance in m2K/W

100% Areca 0.10000 0.1
1
90% Areca + 10 %Low 0.07181 0.08
2 0.07181 0.06875
melt PET 0.06194
0.06
80% Areca + 20 %Low 0.06875
3
melt PET 0.04
70% Areca + 30 %Low 0.06194
4
melt PET 0.02

0
A B C D

Thermal Resistance
 Sound Absorption
Sound Absorption
0.35

0.3

0.25

Sound Absorption in dB
A - 90% Areca + 10 %Low melt PET 0.2

B - 80% Areca + 20 %Low melt PET 0.15

C - 70% Areca + 30 %Low melt PET

0.1

0.05

0
125 250 500 1000 2000 2500 3150 4000 5000 6300

Frequency in Hz

B C D
 Biodegradability
• The biodegradation of samples is done by burying the samples in the soil for the
duration of 4 weeks.
• In this method, samples of all types were cut into pieces of 5x5 cm2.
• The fabric samples were buried at a depth of 8.5 cm in the soil and were allowed
to degrade according to the ISO 11721-1:2001 standard.
• After 4 weeks, the buried samples were taken out and the samples were rinsed
with 70% Ethanol/30%Water for approximately 10 minutes and dried under
standard room temperature conditions.
• Then the weight loss % is calculated.
 Biodegradability
Weight loss
S.No Sample description
(%)
100% Areca
1 20
90% Areca + 10
2 12
%Low melt PET
80% Areca + 20
3 9
%Low melt PET
70% Areca + 30
4 9
%Low melt PET
 Conclusion
• In this work, areca husk fibre/low melt PET nonwovens were developed by needle
punching technology for sound and thermal insulation applications.
• The main objective of this project is to develop a product with better thermal and
sound insulation.
• 100% areca husk fibre and areca husk fibre/low melt polyester nonwoven were
developed with three different blend ratios.
• The influence of blend ratio on physical and insulation properties of nonwovens
was investigated. The thermal insulation behaviour of the developed nonwovens
decreased with increase in low melt PET percentage.
• All the developed nonwovens had good thermal insulation values. The developed
nonwovens have sound absorption of 0.35 dB at 6300 Hz frequency.
• The present results showed that areca husk fibre and low melt PET blended fibre
nonwovens have very good thermal and sound insulation properties and show
replacement for commercially available product.
• In our developed products, natural fibres represent 90 to 70%. Even in lowest limit
of natural fibres, 70% of product undergoes biodegradation contributing towards
biodegradation of product.
 Scope for future work
• With constraint of the machine specifications, we have studied the influence of
low melt PET blend percentage on insulation properties of nonwovens.
• The areca based nonwoven products can be developed with good insulation
properties by optimizing the nonwoven process parameters like % of low melt
PET, depth of needle penetration and punch density by using Box-Behnken design
of experiments.
• The developed nonwovens have the sound absorption value of 0.35 dB at 6300 Hz
frequency. Further studies required to improve the sound absorption performance
of areca husk/low melt PET nonwovens.
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THANK YOU