Acoustical absorptive properties of spunbonded nonwovens made from islands-in-the-sea bicomponent filaments

In this paper, we report on the acoustical absorptive behavior of spunbonded nonwovens that contain bicomponent islands-in-the-sea filaments. Nylon 6 (PA6) and polyethylene were used as the islands and the sea polymers, respectively. Spunbonded webs made with islands-in-the-sea bicomponent filaments with island counts of 1, 7, 19, 37, and 108 were produced at the Nonwovens Institute’s pilot facilities at NC State University. The filaments were fibrillated by hydroentangling, where high-speed water jets were used to fibrillate the fiber and ‘free’ the islands. The influence of the number of islands on acoustical absorptive behavior of the spunbonded nonwovens was investigated. A comparison of acoustical absorptive properties of multi-layer islands-in-the-sea nonwoven and high loft nonwoven was also performed to evaluate the potential use of spunbonded nonwovens made from islands-in-the-sea bicomponent filaments in place of bulky fibrous sound absorbers. Results have shown that multi-layer 108 nonwoven islands were better acoustic absorbers at nearly half of the frequency range. Spunbonded nonwovens made from islands-in-the-sea bicomponent filaments can be a good alternative in applications where there is desire to replace bulky fibrous sound absorbers.