Acoustical Efficiency and Physico-Mechanical Characteristics Study for New Composite Material: Ethylene Vinyl Acetate and Wood Sawdust

Abstract

Developing neoteric composite materials (CM) that improve the acoustic efficiency and mechanical properties become the target of many scientists in the last decade. This paper presents research on developing new CMs using Ethylene Vinyl Acetate (EVA) and sawdust (SD) of different weight concentrations which can be help to improve the acoustic and mechanical properties of the EVA polymer materials. Prototypes of EVA composite in form of flat plates with different weight concentrations of sawdust namely; 0, 2.5, 5, 10, 20 and 30% were produced. One of the interesting applications of this new CMs is to use it as a floor covering in buildings and manufactures. The acoustic efficiency parameters namely, impact noise reduction and sound absorption are experimentally studied. The obtained results articulate that covering floors with the designed composite material of EVA/SD as filler can decrease ISR up to 14 dB. Also, it gives peak sound absorption coefficient about 0.6 for 30 % of SD at mid-frequency band. The greatest proportion of SD aggregate EVA does not entail a higher acoustic performance. The tensile strength of the composite increases to 15.5% when the SD content is 5% and the tensile strength drops with increase the SD content up to 30%. Therefore, SD may be utilized as filler and consolidation in the EVA matrix, which will save expenses and assist the environment.