Sound absorption of woven fabrics produced from braid-reinforced polyvinylidene fluoride hollow fiber membranes

Abstract

Noise pollution has become one of the four major pollutants in modern society, and the development of acoustical materials with superior noise reduction performance is urgent. In order to develop new and high-performance acoustic materials, braid-reinforced (BR) polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) hollow fiber membranes were prepared via the dry–wet spinning process and were used to prepare woven fabrics with different basic textures. The effects of pump flux on the structure and performance of BR PVDF hollow fiber membranes was studied. The results showed that pump flux had an impact on the structural parameters, including the diameter, inner coating layer thickness and porosity, and the fabricated BR PVDF hollow fibers with a porous-resonant composite sound absorption structure had good interface bonding performance. Furthermore, the sound absorption of the woven fabrics was measured by using the impedance tube method in frequency range of 100–6300 Hz. The results demonstrated that plain fabric had a smaller thickness of 2.17 mm and better acoustical properties with a maximum sound absorption coefficient of 0.71. These woven fabrics may potentially be used as ideal materials for controlling noise in fields such as building and transportation.