Permanent noise and vibration monitoring as a valuable tool to the construction industry

Abstract

The construction of large infrastructures in dense urban areas comes along with a number of environmental challenges. Roads, railways, subways, and large building constructions necessarily have a significant impact on residents as well as surrounding buildings. This is especially true when it comes to consider large projects duration, which generally counts in months and even years. In this context, noise and vibration induced by the construction activities are major sources of annoyance to the community and may also induce potential damages to the immediate surroundings. Both issues have thus to be properly monitored in order to reduce adverse effects on residents, help mitigating risks and prevent potential interruption of the construction site's activity which would increase the overall project cost. The proposed paper will focus on how available communication technologies as an essential added value to noise and vibrations measurements. Operational conditions and project managers' requirements for system deployment will be reviewed. Then, benefits to the different parties will be highlighted on the basis of recent practical situations where adequate measures could be taken in the right timing and kept the project running while minimizing its noise and vibration environmental impact.