ANALYSIS OF PREPARED ACOUSTIC BOARDS FROM NATURAL WASTE MATERIALS USING ACTRAN SOFTWARE AND ITS APPLICATION

The investigations focus on analyzing acoustic enclosures intended for noisy Chemical Engineering equipment made out of natural waste materials namely corn cobs, corn stovers and banana stalks using Actran Software with the parameters of study being the comparison between different dimensions of enclosure and material properties of different substances used. Upto 50 Hz frequency, there was no evident distinction in the Pressure-map between two dimensions of enclosures, while beyond 50 Hz, there was a difference with the larger enclosure encountering greater pressure intensities as well as greater ranges of pressure intensities. In the frequency range of 40 Hz - 75 Hz for the smaller enclosure and 30 Hz - 65 Hz for the larger, there was a significant effect of the changing material properties on the sound absorbing ability of the enclosure. When the two plots of enclosures for changing material properties were compared, some amount of instability in the graphs of the three materials was encountered at higher frequencies in the case of the larger enclosure. Upon analyzing the results, banana stalks showed better sound absorption potential followed by corn cobs and corn stovers at frequencies in the range 40 Hz - 70 Hz.