Acoustic Characterization of Some Steel Industry Waste Materials

Abstract

From a circular economy perspective, the acoustic characterization of steelwork by-products is a topic worth investigating, especially because little or no literature can be found on this subject. The possibility to reuse and add value to a large amount of this kind of waste material can lead to significant economic and environmental benefits. Once properly analyzed and optimized, these by-products can become a valuable alternative to conventional materials for noise control applications. The main acoustic properties of these materials can be investigated by means of a four-microphone impedance tube. Through an inverse technique, it is then possible to derive some non-acoustic properties of interest, useful to physically characterize the structure of the materials. The inverse method adopted in this paper is founded on the Johnson–Champoux–Allard model and uses a standard minimization procedure based on the difference between the sound absorption coefficients obtained experimentally and predicted by the Johnson–Champoux–Allard model. The results obtained are consistent with other literature data for similar materials. The knowledge of the physical parameters retrieved applying this technique (porosity, airflow resistivity, tortuosity, viscous and thermal characteristic length) is fundamental for the acoustic optimization of the porous materials in the case of future applications.

Keywords

• steel industry by-products
• circular economy
• sound absorption
• sound reduction index
• granular materials
• inverse method