Sound absorption as a basis for noise reduction studies: Bibliometric analysis

Workplace noise creates negative impacts on human health; therefore, preventive and control actions are compulsory, and sound absorption is one of the ways to prevent and control noise by minimizing noise exposure through the use of sound-absorbing materials. As such, an analysis dealing with the distribution of articles on sound absorption needs to be conducted as a basis for future researchers' opportunities and interests. This study applied a bibliometric method, involving several stages: A Scopus data search stage using the keyword category 'Sound and Absorption' (18,325), followed by a filtering stage for the year range 2015–2024 (8979), article type (5967), English language (5368), keyword 'sound absorption' (1730), and journal type (document) (1720). The data analysis stage was conducted using the VOSviewer application (version 1.6.19) and Biblioshiny from Bibliometrix 3 with RStudio (version 4.3.1) to display bibliometric visualization maps. The results show sound absorption topics spreading in fields as material science (24.8%), physics (22.2%), engineering (22.2%), and environmental science (5.1%). China was the highest contributor, with more than 700 publications. There was an increasing trend in the number of article documents from 2015 (68) to 2024 (332). The journal with the most publications (219) and citations (4,606) was Applied Acoustics. The analysis found four clusters: Cluster 1 in red color (47 items), Cluster 2 in green color (46 items), Cluster 3 in blue color (15 items), and Cluster 4 in yellow color (10 items). Based on the analysis results, it can be concluded that sound absorption is still a current study trend that can be the basis for study opportunities in the topic of sound absorption for noise control.