The Effects of Vision-Related Aspects on Noise Perception of Wind Turbines in Quiet Areas

Abstract

Preserving the soundscape and geographic extension of quiet areas is a great challenge against the wide-spreading of environmental noise. The E.U. Environmental Noise Directive underlines the need to preserve quiet areas as a new aim for the management of noise in European countries. At the same time, due to their low population density, rural areas characterized by suitable wind are considered appropriate locations for installing wind farms. However, despite the fact that wind farms are represented as environmentally friendly projects, these plants are often viewed as visual and audible intruders, that spoil the landscape and generate noise. Even though the correlations are still unclear, it is obvious that visual impacts of wind farms could increase due to their size and coherence with respect to the rural/quiet environment. In this paper, by using the Immersive Virtual Reality technique, some visual and acoustical aspects of the impact of a wind farm on a sample of subjects were assessed and analyzed. The subjects were immersed in a virtual scenario that represented a situation of a typical rural outdoor scenario that they experienced at different distances from the wind turbines. The influence of the number and the colour of wind turbines on global, visual and auditory judgment were investigated. The main results showed that, regarding the number of wind turbines, the visual component has a weak effect on individual reactions, while the colour influences both visual and auditory individual reactions, although in a different way.

Spatial Audio for Soundscape Design: Recording and Reproduction

“…One good example that soundscape research has benefitted from the use of VR techniques is in the SONORUS project [90]. Maffei et al used VR for evaluating the influence of visual characteristics of barriers and wind turbine on noise perception [23,91,92].…”

A discussion of wind turbine interaction and stall contributions to wind farm noise

“…Other factors also need to be considered as visual stimuli have been found to mitigate these effects, and parameters such as turbine colour have also been weakly linked to the reported annoyance , Maffei et al 2013. This is of concern as many studies report that exposure to high enough levels of noise can disturb sleep leading to increases in stress (Pedersen et al 2009).…”

Electric Vehicles and Urban Noise Control Policies

“…The soundscape and the reaction of the population will be strongly influenced by the sound characteristics of the warning signal (loudness, spectrum, directivity) but also by the efforts of the PHEV/HEVs industry in building up a common approach to the problem. The modern technologies based on auralization (Genuit, 2013), and immersive virtual reality (Maffei et al, 2013b;2013c;Ruotolo et al, 2013) can, however, permit to search and build up the best solution which guarantees both the pedestrian safety, an improved soundscape and consequently a better quality of life.…”