Acoustical performance of porous absorber made from recycled rubber and polyurethane resin

This paper reports an investigation of a new kind of material and its acoustical performance. The main component of this porous absorber is the ground tyre rubber (GTR) with different particle sizes, from the shredding of tyres of heavy vehicles, mixed with different proportion of polyurethane resin. Acoustical properties were assessed according to ISO 10534 - 2: 1998. The data obtained show porous absorbers having a high sound absorption performance with low thicknesses and compared to some of the current models for the prediction of their absorptive properties. The use of this model constitutes a good tool in order to design a new sound absorber to solve two environmental problems, noise and environmental pollution.