Study on the formation and sound absorption properties of multi-layer woven fabrics with air layers

Abstract

Textile porous materials, due to their lightweight, flexibility, and strong designability, have shown great potential for application in sound absorption. Using polyester yarns as warp and weft yarns, the multi-layer air-layer woven fabric was successfully prepared using the ’flattening-weaving-restoring’ method. By dividing the weaving area and controlling the density of warp and weft yarns, multi-layer air-layer woven fabrics with different numbers of layers, pore sizes, and tightness were produced. The sound absorption coefficient evaluation results indicate that the multi-layer air gap design and high fabric tightness effectively improved the sound absorption coefficient within the mid-frequency range of 1000–5000 Hz. Under high fabric tightness, increasing the pore size can further enhance the sound-absorbing effect of the fabric. Using the sound absorption coefficient as the response value, a three-factor, three-level response surface analysis method was employed to establish a quadratic regression equation and recommend the optimal parameter combination. Impedance tube testing and response surface analysis revealed that when the fabric structural parameters were optimized to a tightness of 105 % and a pore size of 7 mm, the four-layer air-layer fabric exhibited outstanding broadband sound absorption performance, with an average sound absorption coefficient of 0.4827 across six octave bands, significantly surpassing the acoustic performance of conventional woven fabrics.