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Ferroelectrics
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Investigation of the Damping Properties

and the Sound Insulation Performances
of Fiber-reinforced Composites
a a a a
Rui Chen , Manwen Yao , Pengfei Yang & Xusheng Wang
a
Functional Materials Research Laboratory, Tongji University, 1239
Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, P.R. China
Published online: 20 Oct 2014.

To cite this article: Rui Chen, Manwen Yao, Pengfei Yang & Xusheng Wang (2014) Investigation of
the Damping Properties and the Sound Insulation Performances of Fiber-reinforced Composites,
Ferroelectrics, 470:1, 194-200, DOI: 10.1080/00150193.2014.923254

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00150193.2014.923254

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 Ferroelectrics, 470:194–200, 2014
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0015-0193 print / 1563-5112 online
DOI: 10.1080/00150193.2014.923254

Investigation of the Damping Properties

and the Sound Insulation Performances
of Fiber-reinforced Composites

RUI CHEN, MANWEN YAO,∗ PENGFEI YANG,

AND XUSHENG WANG
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 03:53 11 November 2014

Functional Materials Research Laboratory, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road,

Shanghai 200092, P.R. China

Filling organic or inorganic fibers into the viscoelastic materials is a usual approach
to modify their mechanical damping behaviors. The objective of this work is to study
the mechanical vibration damping behavior and the sound noise reduction capability
of the fiber-reinforced composite materials as well as to explore the correlation between
the damping behaviors and the sound insulation performances. The samples were pre-
pared by blending and solidification processes from ordinary commercial available
damping slurries and various kinds of fiber fillers. The mechanical damping properties
(including elastic modulus and loss factor) were measured by the dynamic mechanical
analyzer (DMA). The sound insulation performances (indicated as acoustic transmis-
sion loss) were characterized by a sound impedance tube. The experimental results
reveal that fiber fillers strongly affect the damping properties of the viscoelastic damp-
ing composites. The acoustic transmission loss curves are also affected.

Keywords Fiber-reinforced; damping; sound insulation; impedance tube

I. Introduction
High speed and high efficiency are the general trends of the development of machinery
and vehicle. In modern cities, noise pollution caused by mechanical vibration imposes a
considerable risk on people’s health and life. There is a wide spectrum of noise such as
machine noise, traffic noise, and etc. In order to relief the noise and vibration problems,
damping materials are widely used. In particular, with the development of high-speed
railway, the research of vibration and noise reduction materials and technology is very
important and urgent. The demand of materials with high strength, light weight and high
damping performance is increasingly emphasized. The fiber-reinforced composite materials
are good candidates to meet such trends. They caught a lot of attention of many researchers
[1–3].
Damping materials have long been used to reduce vibration levels. A lot of works
have been done by many researchers. It was proved that the types and content of the fibers
and the way to mix them with substrate-matrix of the composites had great effect on the

Received in final form June 15, 2013.

∗
Corresponding author; E-mail: yaomw@tongji.edu.cn
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at
www.tandfonline.com/gfer.
194
 Investigation of Fiber-reinforced Composites 195

mechanical and damping properties of the composite materials [4–5]. However, there are
few studies on the relevance of the damping property and noise reduction. In this work,
the mechanical damping properties and the sound transmission loss of the inorganic and
organic fiber-reinforced viscoelastic damping composites were studied. The influence of
the mechanical properties on the sound transmission loss is discussed.

II. Mechanism

1. Viscoelastic Damping
Damping materials are generally known as viscoelastic damping materials with both the
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energy storage from the elastic property and the energy loss from viscous rheology of the
materials. A damping material is able to dissipate energy by transforming a large amount
of mechanical energy into heat. The performance of the damping materials is primarily
characterized by the elastic modulus and loss factor. Under a cyclic stress, the complex
dynamic modulus can be expressed as [6]:

E(ω) = σ (ω)/ε (ω) ≡ E  + j E  ≡ E  [1 + j η] (1)

where σ (ω) is the sinusoidal stress with angular frequency ω acting on an element of a
damping material, ε(ω) is the strain produced by the stress, E  is the real part of the complex
modulus denoting the elastic modulus, which is associated with mechanical energy storage.
The imaginary part E  denotes the loss modulus which is associated with energy dissipation.
The loss factor η is calculated as:

η = E  /E  (2)

where the loss factor η is always called as the loss tangent (tan δ).

2. Sound Insulation
For a dense uniform tabular component with single layer, the transmission loss - frequency
curve consists of three regions, which are resonance frequency region, mass law dominating
region and coincidence effect region. Coincidence effect occurs only at the critical frequency
fc , which is associated with the thickness, density and elastic modulus of the materials. At
the critical frequency fc , the sound insulation will fall significantly and no longer meet
the mass law. Since the noise impact on human being is mainly in the frequency range of
100 Hz to 3150 Hz and the coincidence effect is generally beyond human-being sensitive
frequency range, therefore, it is more important to discuss the resonance frequency region
and mass law dominating region.
There is an inherent resonance frequency for all the components. When the frequency
of the sound wave is same as the resonance frequency, the whole component will resonate,
causing the sound insulation dramatically reduced around this frequency. But in the mass
law dominating region, the sound insulation of component is proportional to the logarithm
of the surface density (or mass per unit area). When the planar sound wave is normal
incidence to the surface of the component, the sound insulation (Transmission Loss) can
 196 R. Chen et al.

be calculated as [6]:
  2 
π fm
TL0 = 10 log 1 + (3)
ρ0 c0

where m is the mass per unit area of the component, f is the frequency of the incident sound
wave, ρ0 is the density of the air medium and c0 is the sound velocity in air. Under normal
circumstances, π fm  ρ0 c0 , so the formula above can be simplified as:

TL0 = 20 log m + 20 log f − 42.5 (4)

The mass law shows that when the material of component has been decided, the only
way to increase the transmission loss is to increase the thickness of the component. While
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doubling the thickness, the transmission loss can increase 6 dB. This law also illustrates that
it is more difficult to control the noise in the low-frequency band than in the high-frequency
region. It has been proved by the practical engineering experience that the increase
of the transmission loss obtained by increasing the thickness of the component is lower
than the theoretical value. The transmission loss can get an increase of only about 4.5 dB
while the thickness is doubled.

III. Experimental
In this study, four kinds of fibers were added into water-based polyacrylate slurry for flame
retardant damping coating. The four fiber materials were glass fiber (abbreviated to GF),
polyvinyl alcohol (abbreviated to PVA) fiber, polypropylene (abbreviated to PP) fiber and
polyester (abbreviated to PET) fiber, provided by Taian Tongban fiber Co. Ltd. (China).
The water based polyacrylate slurry was provided by Qingdao Haiyuan Industry Co. Ltd.
(China).
The mass ratio of the fibers was 2% of the damping slurry. After being stirred thor-
oughly, the damping slurry was then casted into mold and kept in air and ambient tem-
perature for 24 hours. The dimension of the composite sample for damping properties
measurement using the dynamic mechanical analyzer (PerkinElmer DMA 8000, USA) is
30 mm × 10 mm × 2 mm (L × W × T). Circular samples were used for the measurement
of sound transmission loss using the sound impedance tube (BSWA Tech SW422, China).
The damping slurry was applied onto the surface of an aluminum circular plate with 2 mm
thickness and 10 cm diameter.

IV. Results and Discussion

In order to verify the mass law dominating region of the sound insulation, two samples
with different thickness were prepared to test the transmission loss curve. Figure 1 shows
the transmission loss of the composites measured and the theoretical curve predicted. The
test frequency range is from 250 Hz to 1900 Hz. The thicknesses of the samples were 5
mm (ZN-5) and 8 mm (ZN-8), and the composites were tested under 25◦ C. The thicknesses
of the composite are different, but the measured curve and the theoretical curve are well
match above 1000 Hz in both cases. The resonant frequency is about 400 Hz and 600
Hz, respectively. Therefore, it reveals that the mass law dominating range of the damping
composite is above 1000 Hz. The effect of damping properties on the sound insulation is
mostly appeared below 1000 Hz.
 Investigation of Fiber-reinforced Composites 197
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Figure 1. Measured curve and theoretical predicted curve of Transmission Loss of (a) sample ZN-5
and (b) sample ZN-8.

Figure 2 shows the dynamic mechanical properties of the fiber/damping resin com-
posite. The range of the test temperature is from −50◦ C to 100◦ C. Figure 2 indicates
that though the loss modulus and tan δ are affected by mixing different fibers, the glass
transition temperature (Tg ) of the four samples are all about 30◦ C. Without considering
the effect of interface, the incorporation of the rigid filler will increase the elastic mod-
ulus of the composite, and decrease the loss modulus and loss factor peak, but has little
effect on the glass transition temperature. Figure 2(a) also illustrate that the mechanical
properties of the samples are similar in the glass transition region. Figure 2(b) shows that
 198 R. Chen et al.
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Figure 2. Temperature spectrum of dynamic mechanical properties of the fiber-reinforced composite:

(a) loss modulus; (b) loss factor. The deformation mode of PerkinElmer DMA8000 is set as single
cantilever with the displacement 0.02 mm.

Table 1
Loss modulus and tan δ under 25◦ C

Fiber Type Loss Modulus (Pa) tan δ

GF 7.0E7 0.59
PET 6.5E7 0.56
PP 3.8E7 0.41
PVA 8.0E7 0.40
 Investigation of Fiber-reinforced Composites 199
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Figure 3. Transmission loss of fiber-reinforced composites.

the loss factor (tan δ) can reach 0.4 or higher in the region of 30◦ C to 100◦ C. The re-
search suggests that the damping matrix play a leading role in the damping properties of
the composites. Higher loss factor appeared in the high temperature region is due to the
damping performance of the organic fibers. We can observe from Fig. 2 that the glass fiber
composite has a better performance both in loss modulus and loss factor. The reason is
probably that for fiber-reinforced composites, the worse the interface bonding is, the more
energy will be dissipated by the friction between the matrix and fiber, and so the loss
factor.
In order to discuss the effect on the sound insulation of composite by the damp-
ing properties, we list the data of loss modulus and tan δ of the four samples under
25◦ C in Table 1. Figure 3 is the resonance curve of the four samples. It can be seen
from the figure that the loss modulus of the samples did not affect the resonant peak
significantly. But as the decrease of the tan δ value, the resonance peak of the samples
moves toward a higher frequency, and the value of the resonance peak increases. So the
loss factor is more relevant to the sound insulation of the composite than the elastic
modulus.

V. Conclusions
Fiber-reinforced damping materials play an important role in engineering applications. To
make the mechanical properties and damping performance of the composite match the
practical application requirements, the appropriate fiber must be selected. From the discus-
sion above we can conclude that changing the type of the fiber can affect the mechanical
properties (Elastic Modulus and Loss factor) of the composites. Glass fiber has a better
performance in enhancing the mechanical properties of the composites. The mass law
dominating range of the fiber-reinforced damping materials is above 1 KHz, so we can
study the effects of the mechanical properties on the sound insulation of the composites
in the low frequency region (below 1 KHz). With the change of loss factor, the resonance
characteristics of the composites will be changed.
 200 R. Chen et al.

Funding
This work is supported by the National Key Technology R&D Program of China
(2009BAG12A04).

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