Acoustic Assessment of a Composite Material Based on Plaster and Date Palm Spathes

Nowadays, the constraints imposed on materials used for building insulation are multiple. The work must respect numerous regulations: seismic, fire, environmental, thermal, and acoustic. In addition, the building sector, which includes the manufacture of building products and their consumption in use, is the leading consumer of energy ahead of transportation and industry. In this context, industrialists are seeking to design building materials capable of meeting increasingly stringent acoustic regulations in terms of insulation. The main objective of this work is to improve the acoustic properties of plaster by mixing it with date palm waste, in order to be used in exterior walls as sound insulation. This study concerns the determination of the acoustic attenuation index in the laboratory with a waveguide system. The acoustic chamber was chosen for its ease of implementation. The measurement on several samples of composite materials was determined by varying the mass fraction of fiber (0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5%). The values found showed that the incorporation of gypsum with a mass fraction of 1% to 5% of the fiber spathe in the exterior walls made the composite material a good precursor of a sound insulator.