Investigation of the Acoustical and Thermal Properties of Sunflower Particleboards
Résumé
This paper describes the development and physical properties of a new, binderless, and light biobased particleboard, made of sunflower pith. It is first shown that such boards of densities ranging between 50 and 100 kg/m3 can be manufactured using combined action of heat and pressure. Then, acoustical and thermal performances of the particleboards are characterized. Acoustically, raw boards exhibit modest sound absorption, since constrictions between particles are too thin to enable the propagation. This observation is confirmed with the modeling of the material, and an optimization is performed with perforations, and endows the boards with really interesting absorption properties. Thermally, measurements demonstrate that these sunflower particleboards are very performing insulator, with conductivities ranging from 38 to 42 mW/m/K, and that this performance is not strongly affected by the acoustical optimization.