Acoustic damping performance of aluminum nanocomposite foams with different additive of carbon nanotubes and comparison that with conventional rockwool (Research Article)

Open cell aluminum foams have good acoustic dampening properties. In this research, in order to improve the sound damping capacity of these foams, 0.9, 1.5 and 3wt% carbon nanotubes were added to the aluminum foam. Foams were produced by the space holder method in powder metallurgy. The results showed that Al-0.9wt%CNT nanocomposite foam had the highest average sound transmission loss in the frequency range of 500-2048 Hz with 43.11 dB, which compared to the average sound transmission loss of pure aluminum with 18.35 dB, has improved by about 135%. Also, this sample was compared with rockwool with a density of 120 kg/m3, which is generally the best choice in the sound insulation industry. In addition to reducing the thickness, the Al-0.9wt%CNT nanocomposite foam has improved the average loss of sound transmission by more than 157%.