For many years, it has been recognized by those working in the field of industrial noise that understanding how much noise is needed to cause hearing loss over a lifetime is difficult to communicate to most people, even those who have an understanding of logarithms. The concept of expressing noise exposure in industrial situations without decibels is the focus of this paper. Eldred (“Sound Exposure without Decibels” Internoise-86) discussed this approach for community noise. ANSI Standard S3.44-1996 defines sound exposure with units of Pascals squared seconds, or PASQUES, as noted by Eldred. This paper proposes that a safe value for lifetime occupational exposure to noise be expressed in terms of PASQUES. The authors will discuss the pros and cons of such an approach and offer 11.5 × 106 million PASQUES as the upper limit for a safe lifetime exposure to occupational noise.
Construction noise and vibration can interrupt sleep/concentration of humans during renovations. Noise treatments or vibration breaks can reduce the impact. But could background noise cover up a moderate level of construction noise? Innocuous sounds are used to mask quieter but more annoying sounds. The concept is commonly used in offices to aid in concentration and reduce annoyance in places where people work or sleep. But could it be used to mask construction noise if the recipients were rodents rather than people? In theory, the concept of sound masking should be valid for other species of animals. Excessive noise and vibration has been shown to affect rodent behavior including breeding. Their hearing, extending into the ultrasound region, complicates efforts to recognize and measure the rodents’ acoustical environment. During the past several years, we have had occasion to study the literature on rodents’ hearing and the use of masking to prevent the creatures from being bothered by intruding sound. In this paper, we summarize the literature and investigate the concept of masking for rodents with respect to regularly encountered sound sources and sounds from construction activities.
When attempting to make meaningful measurements, airborne ultrasound in the 20 kHz to 100 kHz frequency range presents several significant challenges. These include source and sensor directivity, low signal-to-noise ratios, the inaudible nature of such sounds, and the lack of widespread literature on the subject. For each of these challenges, the practical impacts versus conventional acoustic measurements are identified and discussed. Solutions and suggestions are presented to allow reliable and repeatable measurements when presented with these challenges, including critical information to have prior to measurement, an assortment of techniques which may be employed when performing these measurements, and a brief overview of useful post-processing techniques. The concepts presented in this paper are illustrated using ultrasound measurements made in a vivarium.
When dredges operate near residences, noise can be a concern. The major noise sources of a dredge can include diesel engines (casing and exhaust), generators, transformers, ventilation fans, electric motors, pumps, and winches. Some equipment is enclosed and some is on the open decks. Both airborne and structure-borne noise can be issues. As the dredge operates, its location and orientation relative to residences continuously change. Noise data and treatments are discussed from several dredging projects.
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