Sound Absorption Characteristic of Glass and Plastic Bottles: Considerations of Their Dependences on Material Properties

Abstract

Great number of bottles made by glass, plastic and metal are used to store beverages, liquid ingredients as water, milk, vinegar and also liqueur. Empty bottles after usage are collected for recycling use and resources. Many of them have narrow open mouth and look like typical shape in kinds of Helmholtz resonator. Authors thought that their reuse for functional building parts with sound absorption would be very valuable from points of view of green building and environmental policies, and authors then measured each resonance frequency and sound absorption coefficient of representative, including light-soft-plastic, bottles, with net capacity from 7 to 2000 ml, by setting on the edge of sound tube with diameter of 100 mm. Sound resonances with sound absorption coefficient of 0.3–1.0 at frequencies from 100 to 1000 Hz clearly depending on the capacity could be confirmed. It was also found that measured result was well matched to the numerical calculation based on acoustic impedance change at each section area gradually changed in bottle. It is thought that combination use of recycled bottles with independent resonance frequency is more effective than use of new uniform perforated plates for wide space where we need additional sound absorption in certain frequency range.