Acousticfoam is an open celled foam used for acoustic treatment. It attenuates airbone sound waves, reducing their amplitude, for the purposes of noise reduction or noise control. The energy is dissipated as heat. Acoustic foam can be made in several different colors, sizes and thickness. Acoustic foam can be attached to walls, ceilings, doors, and other features of a room to control noise levels, vibration, and echoes. Many acoustic foam products are treated with dyes and/or fire retardants.
Uses
The objective of acoustic foam is to improve the sound quality by removing residualsound in any space. This purpose requires strategic placement of acoustic foam panels on walls, ceiling and floors, effectively eliminating resonance within the room.
Acoustic enhancement
The objective is to enhance the properties of sound by improving speech clarity and sound quality. For this reason, acoustic foam is often used in recording studios. The purpose is to reduce, but not entirely eliminate, resonance within the room. This is achieved by placing similar sized pieces of foam, often in the shape of cones or triangles, on opposite walls.
Functionality
Acoustic foam is a lightweight material made from polyurethane foam either polyether or polyester, and also extruded melamine foam. It is usually cut into tiles - often with pyramid or wedge shapes - which are suited to placing on the walls of a recording studio or a similar type of environment to act as a sound absorber, thus enhancing the sound quality within a room. Acoustic foam reduces or eliminates echoes and background noises by controlling the reverberation that sound can make by bouncing off walls. This type of sound absorption is different from soundproofing, which is typically used to keep sound from escaping or entering a room. Therefore, acoustic foam is installed in large rooms like churches, synagogues, concert halls. These rooms have large, flat space and noise will certainly bounce around in the room. These sound absorbers are used to improve the acoustics of the room, which thereby reduces noise in the room. Acoustic foam typically deals more with the mid and high frequencies. To deal with lower frequencies, much thicker pieces of acoustic foam are needed; large pieces of acoustic foam are often placed in the corners of a room and are called acoustic foam corner bass traps.
