Vibration Transmissibility Study of High Density Solid Waste Biopolymer Foam

Abstract

Waste cooking oils are problematic to dispose of especially in the developed countries. In this paper, waste cooking oil is used as raw material to produce foam. The purpose of this study is to develop a high density solid biopolymer foam (HDB) by using a hot compression molding technique based on flexible and rigid cross-linking agents. Physical properties such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and vibration characteristics have been studied using a vibration transmissibility test according to the ASTM D3580-95 standard. Different thicknesses were examined during the fabrication of HDB to measure the vibration property. By using the linear vibration theory with a single degree of freedom, the resonance frequency of vibration transmissibility and damping ratios of HDB foam at variation excitation are acquired. The results show that HDB flexible foam gives a higher damping ratio to absorb vibration. The capability of the HDB flexible foam to absorb vibration is greater than rigid HDB. It was observed that no improvement was achieved by increasing the thickness of HDB to vibration transmissibility. Reducing the thickness of the HDB flexible foam gives an increment of a damping ratio up to 36%.

Keywords

• high density solid
• foam
• vibration transmissibility test