With the growing focus today on noise-control issues and the emergence of sound quality as an important aspect of product design, acoustic material testing is becoming increasingly relevant to researchers, engineers, designers and manufactures from a broad range of industries. Products like bio-composites, fibre-reinforced plastics, felt and insulators are being used as sound dampening components, and it is therefore crucial to predict the impact of using specific noise-control materials at an early stage in the development of those components or products. Representing the real application of the product, this testing can help to predict if the acoustic characteristics of the materials have been accurately specified. Many different methods can be used to determine the acoustic properties of materials. The most critical property here is the normal incidence sound absorption coefficient, which is a function of frequency valued between zero and one. Sound absorption is the percentage of sound energy being absorbed by the sample material. This is the primary indicator of the way any barrier material will react in any given environment.

Main Research: Zawawi Ibrahim