The analysis of acoustical characteristics and sound absorption coefficient of woven fabrics

The amount of research conducted on sound absorption properties of woven fabrics in comparison to nonwoven and spacer textile fabrics is very limited. The main aim of this research is to study acoustical and sound absorption properties of woven fabrics. Normal incident sound absorption coefficient was determined via the impedance tube method. To achieve the objective of the research, general acoustical properties of textiles together with existing standards were thoroughly studied. Samples of woven fabrics having varying structural elements, such as weave type, weft yarn linear density, thickness created by layering of test fabrics, yarn spinning system and depth of air space at the back of samples were tested. Results showed that, for most samples while the maximum value of the sound absorption coefficient occurred at a frequency of 1000 Hz, the minimum value was observed at frequencies of 250 and 2000 Hz. Results showed that, the sound absorption coefficient of woven fabrics is influenced by both density and porosity of fabrics. It was found that, plain fabric absorbed sound wave more than the other weave types. Results also indicated that, for a given weft density, fabrics produced with weft yarn linear density of 24.5 tex has a higher absorption than fabrics woven with weft yarns of other counts. It was found that, finer weft yarn and higher thickness of fabric causes the noise reduction coefficient or NRC of the fabric to be increased. It was established that, fabrics woven using rotor-spun yarns exhibited the highest absorption in comparison to samples woven using ring-spun or compact yarns.