Exploring acoustic properties of banana fiber composites with elastomeric filler through a computational approach Articles uri icon

publication date

  • January 2024

start page

  • 1

end page

  • 17

issue

  • 1, 015508

volume

  • 11

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 2053-1591

abstract

  • In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the use of natural fibers as reinforcements in
    composites. This trend is mainly driven by their eco-friendly nature and wide availability. The
    objective of this research is to explore the extensive potential of combining Banana Fiber with Tyre
    Rubber Particles(TRP) as elastomeric fillers in natural fiber composites, focusing primarily on their
    applications in the automotive and aeronautical industries, particularly in terms of acoustic response.
    The composite sequences were named as NFC-I to NFC-V, where NFC represented Natural Fiber
    Composites. To thoroughly investigate the acoustic properties of these innovative composites,
    experimental analysis on the impedance tube was conducted along with numerical simulations on the
    Ansys Harmonic Acoustics® module with Transmission Loss(TL) as the key parameter. An
    orthotropic material model based on the chopped fiber RVE (Representative Volume Element)was
    developed on the Ansys 2022 R1® Material Designer Module which could be deemed as the novelty of
    the current work. From the results, it was seen that within the designated frequency bands, specifically
    the low(67–400 Hz), medium (400–1900 Hz), and high (1900–6300 Hz)ranges, the NFC-4 (15 wt%
    of TRP) composite consistently demonstrated the lowest average TL values. Conversely, NFC-3
    (27 wt% of TRP) consistently showcased the highest TL values, reaching a peak of 27.13 dB in the lowfrequency range and 46.73 dB in the high-frequency range. The results obtained from the impedance
    tube experiments align remarkably well with the numerical simulation outputs, demonstrating the
    reliability of the numerical model in estimating the transmission loss of composite laminatesa crucial
    parameter for evaluating acoustic performance.

subjects

  • Materials science and engineering
  • Mechanical Engineering