Fique fibres as a sustainable material for thermoacoustic conditioning

Fique is an endemic agave species and extensively harvested in Colombia. Its fibres are commonly used for low-tech applications like sacks and cords fabrication for food packaging and handicrafts in general. This paper discusses the study of fibres and textiles from fique as an alternative natural thermoacoustic material for potential technological applications. The study was carried out by characterizing the fique fibres morphology, fabricating non-woven samples from raw fique fibres and in-depth thermoacoustic characterization. Fique nonwovens sound absorption was measured and modelled, flow resistivity, dynamic stiffens, and thermal conductivity were measured. It has been demonstrated that the sound absorption performance can be improved by increasing the thickness of the sample and by having a small fibre diameter. Fique nonwovens behaved like an elastic framed material, which makes rigid skeleton models inaccurate to calculate its sound absorption. Overall fique fibres showed to be comparable to synthetic materials in thermal insulation, sound impact reduction and sound absorption above 1000 Hz.