Utilization of sawdust and coconut coir fibre as noise reducing wall surface materials

Abstract

With the technological development, industrial noise, which is caused by machines, has become a severe problem for the day-today life of people. They have faced with many problems mentally and healthily. Therefore noise control plays an important role in creating a pleasing environment. This can be achieved when the intensity of sound is brought down to a level that is not harmful to human ears. Noise barriers, noise absorbers, reflectors are used for noise controlling purposes. This research was conducted to investigate the potential of using sawdust and coconut coir fiber as sound reducers for giving a solution for the existing noise problem. Wall tiles were made by using sawdust and panels by coconut coir fibre. For preparation of tiles using sawdust, sawdust particles were mixed with cement and sand. Latex of rubber was used with coconut coir fiber to produce pannel. For these tiles, sawdust particle sizes and tile thickness were varied. Noise Reduction Co-efficient (NRC), which is a ratio between the reduction levels of noise to the intensity of incident sound, was investigated by using an experimental setup including signal generator, speakers and the noise level meter. It was found that there was a significant effect of increasing the tile thickness, varying particle size, on NRC. NRC values obtained for sawdust and coir fiber tiles ranged from 0.1 to 0.5. It was found that these materials can be effectively used as sound reducing wall surface materials. Utilization of these materials will also reduce environmental pollution and improve sustainability.