Characterization and estimation of the acoustical and elastic parameters in stone wool samples.

Mineral wool is widely used in acoustic applications. The properties of glass wool have been broadly investigated, thus resulting in a good knowledge of its structure and parameters. This information is used to describe mineral wool in general. Nevertheless, other types, such as stone wool, involve a different production process and therefore have a different fibre structure. e.g. stone wool is not transversally isotropic as glass wool. These differences can have important effects depending on the use of the material; therefore, assuming the same parameter values for both materials may lead to inaccurate results in simulations and calculations. Currently there are few studies that characterize both the acoustic and elastic properties of stone wool. This contribution reports on the characterization of two stone wool samples with different densities (~70 kg/m³ and ~140 kg/m³). The characterization aimed at obtaining the parameters that are required for the description of the propagation of sound in the material through the Biot poroelastic model, i.e. the acoustic and elastic parameters. The obtained knowledge enables the adequate modelling of the investigated poroelastic materials in different configurations by numerical methods such as finite elements and the transfer matrix method.