Sound insulation in polymer/inorganic particle composites. I. Theoretical model

The sound insulation behavior of inorganic particulate-filled polymer composites was analyzed by means of acoustics theory in this article to reveal the mechanisms of sound insulation. On the basis of it, a physical model of the sound wave transfer in the composite system was established, and a relevant transmission loss equation was derived. The transmission loss of the glass bead-filled polyethylene composites was estimated by using this equation. The results showed that the calculated transmission loss of the composites increased linearly with an increase of the glass bead volume fraction, and it increased nonlinearly with increasing sound frequency. The sensitivity of the transmission loss to the sound frequency was significant at low sound frequency. The transmission loss decreased nonlinearly with the size of added glass bead when the volume fraction was constant. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012