Utilization of Treated Red Meranti Wood Dust as Polymer Foam Composite for Acoustic Study

Abstract

A Red Meranti Wood Dust (RMD) act as a filler for polymer foam composite has been investigated and proved to have ability to absorb sound. In this study, treatment of wood dust with and without acid hydrolysis named as WDB and WDA respectively was use as filler. This study was developed to compare the ability of sound absorption based on treated filler and particle size of wood dust. By choosing the size of 355 µm, three different percentage has been selected which is 10%, 15% and 20% for both conditions. These samples has been tested by using Impedance Tube test according to ASTM E-1050 for sound absorption coefficient, α measurement and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) for determine the porosity for each samples. 10% loaded of WDB as filler gives highest sound absorption coefficient of 0.999 at 4015.63 Hz. Meanwhile for 20% loaded of WDA gives 0.997 at 3228.13 Hz. When comparing the sound absorption coefficient for both sounds absorbing materials, WDB-polymer foam composite RMD showed higher value of sound absorption coefficient, α at higher frequency as compared to WDA-polymer foam composite.