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ACOUSTICS The Use of Polyurethane Foam To Reduce Unwanted Sound What is sound, and how do we hear it? When is it harmful to us physically and or psychologically? How can we reduce sound, and lessen its impact on our work and lives? What do all those terms such as decibels, amplitude, frequency and cycles mean and what is a hertz? How Sound is Measured Sound is created by the movement of air forward and backward causing a pressure wave to be formed in the air. When this wave reaches the ear it activates the hearing mechanism by causing the eardrum to vibrate at the same rate as the wave. The pressure message is passed along to the brain, which translates it into the mental understanding of a sound. The repeating of pressure waves at the same frequency makes the sound continuous; changes in the frequency will change the sound you hear to a higher pitch or a lower one. A tuning fork vibrating at 440 times per second produces the tone we know as A. In physical terms each time the vibrating prong of the fork moves forward into the air it compacts the air molecules to form compression or raises the pressure. As the prong returns to its starting position, the pressure returns to normal. Passing through the position of rest at which it began the prong swings into a negative posture leaving behind it a rarefaction or an area of fewer air molecules. This area has fewer molecules in it because the prong pushed them out of the way during its compression and thus the pressure in the rarefaction is lower. Finally the tuning fork prong returns to the neutral position of rest. This single sequence from rest to compression to rest to rarefaction and back to rest again is called a cycle. The number of cycles that take place in a second is the frequency of a sound and frequency is expressed in a unit called a hertz. 440 cycles per second is also expressed in 440 hertz. The linear measurement of a single cycle in the air is the wavelength. Sound travels at approximately 1100 feet per second at sea level. The wavelength of a sound produced at 100 cycles per second is thus about 11 feet. At 1000 cycles the wavelength is about 1.1 feet. Long wavelengths produce low frequency sounds and short wavelengths produce high frequency sounds. The human ear can hear a maximum range from 20-20,000 hertz or cycles per second. What makes a sound quiet or loud? The answer is the degree to which the air molecules in the sound wave are either compressed or rarefied. This measurement is called amplitude. A loud sound is one in which there is a high degree of compression or rarefaction and thus the eardrum vibrates more violently. The unit of measure used to measure the intensity or loudness of a sound heard by the ear is the decibel. It is a ratio of the pressure of the sound wave at the ear to the pressure of the standard sound. That standard sound is one that is just below the level of hearing for a healthy young person and is called the threshold of hearing. It is rated at 0 decibels. The scale of decibel is not an arithmetic progression but a logarithmic one. The human ear begins to hear at very low decibels and hears sounds more clearly as the decibel level rises. The impact of sound on the ear, however, does not increase directly with the increase of the decibels. The hearing difference between 0 and 65 decibels, a 65 decibel spread, ranges up from silent to normal conversation; however, the hearing difference between 65 and 95 decibels is only a 30 decibel spread brings us from normal conversation to the loudness of a punch press or a pneumatic jack hammer. At 120 decibels the threshold of pain occurs. Above 120 decibels sound is damaging to us. Even in the 90 to 120 decibel range extended exposure can be harmful. At 110 decibels, 20 more, the exposure limit is cut drastically to only hour per day. To complete this brief discussion of a decibel, the decibel reading of noise in a given environment can be the pressure ratio on the ear of all the frequencies present combined and this is usually the case as we rarely hear pure sound. Decibels, abbreviated as dB, are often expressed in combination with a letter, such as A, B or C. These indicate various methods of measuring decibels called weighing scales. The most common is dBA. The A weighing scale is an electrical model of the human ear, which doesnt hear well below 1000 cycles per second (hertz) or above 4,000 cycles per second. The dBA scale is thus most useful in purposes dealing with audible sound and its control. Science of Sound Control Sound energy can be reflected, absorbed or transmitted when it strikes a surface. A material that sound strikes is considered to be a poor absorber if it reflects a high percentage of the sound energy. If the material is a good absorber very little sound is reflected. A material that transmits a high portion of the sound may also be considered a good absorber if it allows the sound to be passed through to another dissipating medium such as a large volume of air. The key is dissipating. For sound to be absorbed its energy must be converted to another form such as heat and dissipated in an absorbing medium, thus when a sound wave enters a layer of polyurethane foam, it causes the fiber strands to vibrate and heat-up. The sound energy becomes low-level heat energy. It is important to note that one quarter of the wave length of a sound wave should enter a material in order to achieve efficient absorption, thus it is obvious that high frequency sound with short wave lengths are easier to absorb than long wavelengths of low frequency sound. Most materials

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absorb a greater percentage of the incident sound energy in the 1000-4000 hertz range than in the 100 to 1000 hertz range. The efficiency of an absorber depends upon its ability to let the sound wave enter its total volume. An open window is a perfect absorber so long as you are on the same side as the sound source; if you are on the other side, then the open window becomes a perfect transmitter. The opposite of an open window effect would be a barrier of solid material so dense that the sound wave was unable to penetrate it. Between an individual and a sound source a barrier would stop the sound from reaching the source side of such a barrier; however, the reflection and subsequent echoing of sound waves would be at a maximum. If there were an absorbent layer of open pore material on the side of a solid barrier struck by the sound, it would cut the energy reaching the barrier, reduce the transmission of sound and reduce the sound reflecting off the barrier. Imagine you are in a room that has a sound source in the center, such as a printer. There is an open door leading to an adjacent conference room. One way you could reduce the sound of the printer from reaching your ear is to place a barrier directly between you and the source of the sound wave. Nothing outside of the direct path of the sound will do the job. The next best choice is to lower the sound level in the room by reducing the amount of sound being reflected from the walls, ceiling and floor. The amount of sound going through the open door to the conference room would also need to be reduced. While the open door is a perfect absorber from where one is located, it is transmitting too much noise to the people in the conference room. One answer is to cover the floors, ceiling and walls, which are highly reflective surfaces, with an efficient sound absorber and close the door to the conference room. Ceilings can be of acoustical tile, walls can be covered with drapes and the floors can be carpeted. This is expensive, but with the right materials to handle the sound frequencies being generated it is fairly efficient. It doesnt stop the sound of the printer at the source but it works to attenuate to noise level in the room by using absorption to greatly reduce sound wave reflection. If the sound source is small enough such as the air exhaust from a copier or computer the sound might be muffled right at the source with the application of a reactive muffler of polyurethane foam of the proper thickness. Such a muffler can absorb sound energy while allowing the air stream to pass over it. The important thing in muffling a sound at its source or in reducing the sounds reflection around the room is that the absorbing materials are put there to catch the moving waves of the sound energy to transform that energy to heat and to reduce its effect on the people in the room. Choose the Correct Material You must apply the proper material with the right thickness and the right physical qualities to deal with individual noise control situations. One of the easiest ways to test the absorbing properties of any material is to back that material with a purely reflective surface and then to send sound waves of known frequency into the material measuring the amount of sound reflected. Putting the purely reflecting surface behind the material gives a true absorption value for the material and eliminates any transmission from the test apparatus. The sound waves incident on the test material are either reflected from its own surface, absorbed in the material itself or reflected from the backing surface. Knowing the original incident energy and being able to measure the reflective energy allows for the absorption coefficient of the test material to be determined. There are two types of tests that can be used to determine the absorption characteristics of the material. The first is the use of a reverberation room to determine the random incidence sound absorption coefficient. The reverberation chamber has walls with many non-parallel sections. A sound of known frequency and intensity is introduced into the room. When the sound source is turned off, the time required for the sound level to fall to a pre-established level is measured and the reverberation time for that sound is then known. When a sound absorbing material is placed in the room, the reverberation time will be reduced. The difference between the reverberation time for the test sound and the time with the absorbing material present determines the random incidence sound absorption coefficient for the specific material being tested in the chamber. Such a random incidence measurement is actually quite representative of the material absorbing qualities in use for it has been exposed to sound waves entering it from all directions. The second type of absorption coefficient testing measures the materials qualities at normal incidence of sound, sound coming from only one direction and perpendicular to the surface of the material. The Normal Incidence test method (Impedance Tube Test) is performed by sending a sound of known frequency down a hollow closed reflective end tube. As the sound wave is reflected back up the tube toward the original sound source, it interferes with the incidence or projected sound and forms a standing wave in the tube. The standing wave is characterized by fixed points of air compression and rarefaction in the tube. Amplitude is the degree of a compression, or rarefaction, of the air molecules in the wavelength of a given sound. Measuring the pressure at the points of compression and rarefaction in the standing wave tube tells us the amplitude of the test sound. When an absorbing material is placed in the target end of the tube, back by the purely reflective surface of a metal cap at the end, the amplitude of the standing wave is diminished because less sound energy has reflected back up

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the tube toward the sound source. It is thus a relatively simple matter to measure the amount of sound absorbed and to determine the materials normal incidence sound absorption coefficient. The test for normal incidence sound absorption is usually more precise and reproducible than the random incidence test but it is limited to the testing of relatively small material samples. Random incidence testing allows for testing of large samples but the results are harder to duplicate. A single number used to characterize a materials overall sound absorbing properties is an average of the random coefficients at several different frequencies. It is called the noise reduction coefficient or NRC. The NRC can be misleading because it is an average; it conceals the absorption performance of a material at specific frequencies and thus can mislead the user. Acoustics and Foam Each sound abatement problem faced is a very individual problem. The sound emitted from a piece of industrial machinery is peculiar to that specific piece of equipment and its frequency composition. This sound is made up of a mixture of various frequencies ranging from low to high, each presenting different sound absorption requirements. Foams that are made to absorb sound vary in how well they absorb different frequencies. Selecting a foam product for a specific application involves matching the frequency spectrum of a noise to the absorbing capabilities of foam. For instance, a bare piece of 1 thick acoustical foam, Hyfonic, is a good overall wide frequency range absorber. The same foam with a perforated vinyl covering will be a highly efficiency absorber in the low frequency range and a low efficiency absorber in high frequency range. In another application an added variable in creating the right foam absorber might be the need to prevent liquids from entering into the absorber. To allow for this some sound absorption capabilities will have to be sacrificed. An example of this application would be if sound absorbing foam were placed inside an enclosure for a diesel or gasoline engine. A problem with the sound absorber filling with a hazardous flammable fluid might be encountered and would be counterproductive to sound absorption. In this case a liquid barrier must be provided on the surface of the foam. It is then necessary to be precise about the thickness, pore size and other characteristics of the foam sound absorber used so that the maximum amount of noise can be absorbed under such conditions. As outlined, the physical properties of polyurethane foam play an important role in controlling foams ability to absorb sound. This is where Foamex demonstrates its ability to control and focus on these variables, and to yield a product designed for the specific application.

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