The acoustic insulation of rigid polyurethane foam composite with some agricultural residues

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Department of Agricultural Structures and Environmental Control Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.

Abstract

The rapid growth of agricultural production has generated several environmental impacts with an important contribution from agricultural residues. Significant agricultural residues come from cultivation of cotton and corns, particularly its stalks, which were used in this work to produce a renewable composite of rigid polyurethane foam (RPUF) with soundprofing property. This work aimed to improve acoustic insulation performance of rigid polyurethane foam by adding agricultural residues (cotton or corn stalks, TS or CS) to produce a composite of rigid polyurethane foam with some agricultural residues. Four volumes ratios (5, 10, 15 and 20 %) of cotton or corn stalks were replaced with rigid polyurethane foam, beside a control replacement ratio, pure polyurethane foam, (0 %). The produced composite mad from rigid polyurethane foam (RPUF) and (TS or CS) were tested to measure bulk density “Bd, kg/m3” and acoustic insulation “Ai, %”. The results cleared that bulk density and acoustic insulation percentage were affected by previous replacement ratios (%) thus; bulk density and acoustic insulation percentage were increased with increasing the previous replacement ratios of each cotton or corn stalks. The data illustrated that acoustic insulation property of rigid polyurethane foam was improved with incorporated each TS or CS. Corn stalks showed the best, highest, acoustic insulation percentage values than cotton stalks. The highest acoustic insulation percentage were 28.07 and 20.18 (%) for corn and cotton stalks respectively, at replacement ratio of 20 (%).

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