Mechanical and acoustical behavior of starch-hemp biocomposite materials

Abstract

The starch-hemp is a bio-composite materials and it consisted of starch binder and hemp shives. This bio-composite material is a new durable material for construction and building. In this work, the study on mechanical and acoustical behavior of the starch-hemp bio-composite materials was carried out. The starch-hemp bio-composite materials specimens with three Hemp/Starch ratios (H/S=6, 8 and 10), were manufactured by using the optimal binder and the hemp shives mixtures (0-5 mm+0-15 mm and 0-5 mm+0-20 mm). Influence of the H/S ratio and hemp shives size on density, ultimate compressive stress, tensile strength, elasticity modulus and Poisson's ratio of the starch-hemp bio-composite materials was studied and analyzed. The study on acoustical behavior shows that the starch-hemp bio-composite materials are a very good sound absorber material for medium and high frequencies with a value around 0.7. The influence of the H/S ratio on the absorption coefficient is small. The results show that the starch-hemp biocomposite materials have a good mechanical and acoustical performance and can be used as building materials.