Study on Characteristics of EMU Feather Fibres Reinforced Polypropylene Composite for Acoustic Purpose

Emu feather fibers are found to possess high lightness, good thermal insulation and more hydrophilic & less hydrophobic in nature. Their low density and large aspect ratio can make them good reinforcing materials as a matrix composite. Emu feathers in pre-determined weight proportion are processed to make random orientation and made into a composite using polypropylene as a matrix by compression molding technique. This study deals the sound absorption properties for emu feather reinforced polypropylene composite materials .Acoustic is currently one of the most important fields of study. Recently, many studies have been carried out in this field and new findings have uncovered the potential use of new materials for sound absorption applications. Composite produced from emu feather and polypropylene sheet have been tested acoustically. Also, adding air space behind the sample improved the sound absorption at low and mid frequencies. A significant improvement in sound absorbing performance at low and mid frequencies was achieved by having cavities of 25% for the tested sample. The hollow, light weight fibers naturally contain a significant volume of air which made their dielectric constants lower than e-glass fibers. To aid the development of successful applications for emu feather in composite making and systematically investigate mechanical and sound dampening behaviors of light-weight feather composites this research work has been taken up. Generally, the results indicated that emu feather material hold promise for use as raw material for sound absorbing, lightweight and biodegradability.