Investigation on Acoustical and Physical Characteristics of Kenaf Intermix with Natural Rubber.

Natural fibres are significantly used as reinforcements in manufacturing low-cost and lightweight polymer composites; other advantages include being innoxious to human, easily obtained, and having a higher capacity of biodegradability. Therefore, researchers divert their attentions to finding sustainable and eco-friendly materials such as natural fibres to be an alternative sound absorber. This paper discusses the use of natural fibre from the Kenaf fibre (Hibiscus Cannabinus), which qualifies as an acoustical material to control undesired noise. This selected natural fibre is famous in South East Asia countries and has a wide plantation. Sound absorption properties of this natural fibre have been investigated. During the processing stage, Kenaf fibres are treated with alkaline treatment; 2% individually and boundwith various percentages of natural rubber (latex). The thickness of each sample is kept constant at 50mm only. Their acoustic performance was evaluated by using an impedance tube instrument. The result shows that Kenaf reaches the maximum absorption coefficient value towards low frequency when the fibre samples are bound with natural rubber. Fibres without the binder reach a high-frequency range of 4000 Hz and above. The physical characteristics of Kenaffibres such as density, porosity, and flow resistivity were also tested. The results demonstrate that this selected natural fibre is a promising light and environmental-friendly sound absorption material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]