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One of the most important characteristics that a filter must possess is high air permeability. A good filter fabric must be able to capture the dust particles while maintaining a good airflow through it in order to reduce high pressure drop. Therefore, producing a filter fabric with the desired air permeability can be challenging as several process parameters such as fiber types, area weight and water jet pressure will interact with each other during spunlacing process and influence the fabric air permeability. To study the effects of these independent variables on the air permeability of three different types of spunlaced fabrics, the Box–Behnken design was used to model their effects. The fibers used were polyacrylonitrile, polyphenylene sulfide and blend of polyphenylene sulfide/polyimide. In addition, filtration properties of some of the filter samples were also evaluated. Based on the effects of the fiber types, area weight and water jet pressure on the fabric air permeability, the optimum conditions for achieving higher air permeability were fiber types (+1 level), area weight (0 level) and pressure (−1 level), respectively. The air permeability of the fabrics decreased with increasing water jet pressure for all fiber types and increasing area weight decreased the air permeability. It was observed that the independent variables had a significant effect on the air permeability. Filtration efficiency of the selected filters samples were ≥95%. Among the selected samples, polyphenylene sulfide/polyimide (440 g/m2) fabric has the lowest pressure drop whereas polyacrylonitrile (560 g/m2) has the highest pressure drop.

This paper reports a study on the optimization of process parameters of needle-punched nonwoven fabrics for achieving maximum sound absorption by employing a Box-Behnken factorial design. The influence of fiber type, depth of needle penetration, and stroke frequency on sound absorption properties were studied. These parameters were varied at three levels during experimental trials. From multiple regression analysis, it was observed that the depth of needle penetration alone was the most dominant factor among the selected parameters, which was followed by the interaction between depth of needle penetration and stroke frequency. Fiber type was the least dominant parameter affecting sound absorption. A maximum sound absorption coefficient of 0.47 was obtained from the selected parameters. The results showed that for a process such as needle-punching, which is influenced by multiple variables, it is worthwhile to study the interactive effects of process parameters for achieving optimum sound absorption.

This article reports a study on the effect of different natural fibres, their blend ratios and varying air gaps between a needle-punched non-woven fabric and polystyrene backing on the sound absorption coefficients of the needle-punched non-woven fabrics. These parameters as well as their interactive effects were studied by variance analysis. The air gap varied from 0 to 25 mm in 5 mm increments; three natural fibre types (agave, flax and waste wool) were used; each one blended with polyester fibres in three blending ratios. The univariate test of significance showed that all three parameters and two of the three two-way interactions effects on sound absorption coefficients were significant. Only two-way interaction effect between blend ratio and air gap on sound absorption coefficient was not significant. It was found that the sound absorption coefficients increased with an increase in air gap size up to 15 mm, after which they decreased slightly as the air gap was increased further to 25 mm. In addition, the non-woven fabrics produced from the blend of waste wool and polyester fibres achieved the highest sound absorption coefficients than those of the other two natural fibres, and generally, the sound absorption coefficients increased with the increase in polyester fibre content in each blend studied.