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Approximately 57% of total production occurs in west Malaysia, 99% in Sabah and about 5 million hectare of area oil palm has been planted. At present, Malaysia is famous in the producing of oil palm in the international market. The oil palm trees are not only provide oil but also raw materials. Among the alternative material resources, agricultural waste like oil palm Mesocarp is selected and known as lignocellulosic materials. In this research, the acoustic absorption of oil palm Mesocarp was measured. The material were mixed with Polyurethane (PU) as binder with four different percentages of 10%, 20%, 30% and 40%. Experimental measurements in impedance tube are used for analysis. Moreover, analytical models namely; Delany-Bazley are conducted to validate the experimental measurements. Results showed that the percentages of binder have positive and significant effects on physical properties. Delany-Bazley model were predicted the absorption coefficient very well in low frequency range. The result also presented that all samples demonstrated higher SAC at mid-high frequency range with the average of sound absorption above 0.5. The sample with 10 percent PU binder shows the best performance in most of low to mid frequency range. However, sample with 20 percent PU binder reach the high value of sound absorption which is very close to 1 at 1000 Hz. These results indicated that oil palm Mesocarp fiber is capable to be used as sound absorbing material.

Sound absorption; Natural fiber; Oil palm mesocarp; Noise reduction coefficient; Delany-bazley