Sound absorption of multiple layers of nanofiber webs and the comparison of measuring methods for sound absorption coefficients

Textile sound absorbents are getting more and more popular on the market as noise reduction is a major requirement for human comfort today. In this paper we focus on a new textile material for sound absorption, by investigating the acoustic characteristics of nanofibers. Through impedance tube method we measured the sound absorption coefficients of multiple layers of nanofiber webs and compared those with microfiber materials per fabric weight. We also examined the effect of layers of nanofiber webs on regularfiber knitted fabric on sound absorption. The test results showed that the sound absorption coefficients of nanofiber layers were superior that of microfiber fabrics in the frequency range 1000–4000 Hz. In this range, the sound absorption of nanofiber webs improved with numbers of layers. Also, adding nanofiber web plies to regularfiber fleece increased the sound absorption coefficient with 85 % at 4000 Hz. From our results we could observe differences in the sound absorption coefficients between two test methods, which are higher absorbance coefficients through the reverberation room method than impedance tube method.