Amplitude modulations increase annoyance due to wind turbine noise immission

2021 ◽  
Vol 263 (2) ◽  
pp. 4048-4057
Author(s):  
Christoph Pörschmann ◽  
Stephan Großarth ◽  
Johannes M. Arend ◽  
Sebastian Schmitter ◽  
Dirk Schreckenberg ◽  
...  

Current literature suggests that annoyance of wind turbine noise is strongly affected by amplitude modulations (AM). A survey was carried out at five German residential study sites near wind turbines with a total of about 500 residents to study the effects of AM in more detail. Annoyance, disturbances, and the perception of wind turbine noise characteristics, including AM, were assessed. For each participant, address-related exposure to rating levels of wind turbines was estimated. Further, we carried out headphone-based listening experiments with participants from three of the five study areas and with non-exposed participants from another 'control' location. In the listening experiments, perceived annoyance was rated for varying AM and for different A-weighted sound pressure levels for a total number of 79 subjects. As expected, the results show an increase in annoyance with sound pressure level. Furthermore, annoyance increased significantly with the extent of amplitude modulations. Interestingly, annoyance showed a strong rise as soon as amplitude modulations became audible in the signal and this rise was hardly affected by the sound pressure level. In our contribution, we present comparisons of the results of the survey and the listening experiments.

Acta Acustica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Guillaume Dutilleux ◽  
Jean Fosset

While most of the countries over the world rely on sound-pressure-level-based limit values to regulate wind energy development, sound emergence as defined in ISO 1996-1 is used in a few national legislations but also in international guidelines. There is however no published evidence that sound emergence is a relevant noise descriptor for that kind of source, namely that there is a correlation between this metric and perception or annoyance. A listening test was carried out to evaluate the relative merits of sound pressure level and sound emergence as predictors of annoyance from wind turbine noise. The test samples consisted of 45 30-s wind turbine sounds at three different A-weighted sound pressure levels and five different signal-to-noise ratios. Thirty two persons rated the test samples according to the ISO 15666 standard scale in a dry room equipped with loudspeakers. The results indicate that short term annoyance is better predicted by A-weighted sound pressure levels than by sound emergence. It is also observed that sound emergence is a poor predictor of the audibility of wind turbine sounds.


2009 ◽  
Vol 55 (No. 2) ◽  
pp. 69-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Šístková ◽  
A. Peterka

The noise belongs to the leading harmful factors which pollute the environment and negatively influences human health. An overview measurement concerning the noise characteristics has been done in agricultural service workplaces. The sound pressure level has been measured and the length of the workers exposition has been elicited in each workplace. The obtained data has proved that some agricultural service workers have been exposed to a noise above the permissible exposure limit.


2016 ◽  
Vol 139 (3) ◽  
pp. 1436-1442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen E. Keith ◽  
Katya Feder ◽  
Sonia A. Voicescu ◽  
Victor Soukhovtsev ◽  
Allison Denning ◽  
...  

Processes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 793 ◽  
Author(s):  
Si ◽  
Wang ◽  
Yuan ◽  
Huang ◽  
Lin ◽  
...  

The radiated noise of the centrifugal pump acts as a disturbance in many applications. The radiated noise is closely related to the hydraulic design. The hydraulic parameters in the multistage pump are complex and the flow interaction among different stages is very strong, which in turn causes vibration and noise problems because of the strong hydraulic excitation. Hence, the mechanism of radiated noise and its relationship with hydraulics must be studied clearly. In order to find the regular pattern of the radiated noise at different operational conditions, a hybrid numerical method was proposed to obtain the flow-induced noise source based on Lighthill acoustic analogy theory, which divided the computational process into two parts: computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational acoustics (CA). The unsteady flow field was solved by detached eddy simulation using the commercial CFD code. The detailed flow information near the surface of the vane diffusers and the calculated flow-induced noise source was extracted as the hydraulic exciting force, both of which were used as acoustic sources for radiated noise simulation. The acoustic simulation employed the finite element method code to get the sound pressure level (SPL), frequency response, directivity, et al. results. The experiment was performed inside a semi-anechoic room with a closed type pump test rig. The pump performance and acoustic parameters of the multistage pump at different flow rates were gathered to verify the numerical methods. The computational and experimental results both reveal that the radiated noise exhibits a typical dipole characteristic behavior and its directivity varies with the flowrate. In addition, the sound pressure level (SPL) of the radiated noise fluctuates with the increment of the flow rate and the lowest SPL is generated at 0.8Qd, which corresponds to the maximum efficiency working conditions. Furthermore, the experiment detects that the sound pressure level of the radiated noise in the multistage pump rises linearly with the increase of the rotational speed. Finally, an example of a low noise pump design is processed based on the obtained noise characteristics.


Author(s):  
Małgorzata Pawlaczyk-Łuszczyńska ◽  
Kamil Zaborowski ◽  
Adam Dudarewicz ◽  
Małgorzata Zamojska-Daniszewska ◽  
Małgorzata Waszkowska

The aim of this study was to evaluate the perception and annoyance of noise from wind turbines in populated areas of Poland. A questionnaire inquiry was carried out among 517 subjects, aged 18–88, living within 204–1726 m from the nearest wind turbine. For areas where respondents lived, A-weighted sound pressure levels (SPLs) were calculated as the sum of the contributions from the wind power plants in the specific area. It has been shown that the wind turbine noise at the calculated A-weighted SPL of 33–50 dB was perceived as annoying or highly annoying by 46% and 28% of respondents, respectively. Moreover, 34% and 18% of them said that they were annoyed or highly annoyed indoors, respectively. The perception of high annoyance was associated with the A-weighted sound pressure level or the distance from the nearest wind turbine, general attitude to wind farms, noise sensitivity and terrain shape (annoyance outdoors) or road-traffic intensity (annoyance indoors). About 48–66% of variance in noise annoyance rating might be explained by the aforesaid factors. It was estimated that at the distance of 1000 m the wind turbine noise might be perceived as highly annoying outdoors by 43% and 2% of people with negative and positive attitude towards wind turbines, respectively. There was no significant association between noise level (or distance) and various health and well-being aspects. However, all variables measuring health and well-being aspects, including stress symptoms, were positively associated with annoyance related to wind turbine noise.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Jianlong Ma ◽  
Yafan Duan ◽  
Ming Zhao ◽  
Wenchun Lv ◽  
Jianwen Wang ◽  
...  

Although the optimization of wind turbine blade aerodynamic performance has achieved fruitful results, whether airfoil concavity, an important method for preventing flow separation, is also feasible for improving the aerodynamic performance has not been confirmed scientifically. Thus, we selected the blade of a small horizontal-axis wind turbine as a research model and proposed an optimization method based on airfoil concavity near the trailing edge of the blade suction surface. The experimental results showed that airfoil concavity improved blade aerodynamic performance by 3–15%. Subsequently, its effects on the sound pressure level within the wake flow field were investigated using an acoustic array, and the results suggested that the sound pressure level was reduced by 9.6–15.8%. Lastly, a modal test of the rotor blade was conducted. Although the natural frequencies of the 1st and 2nd order vibrations had hardly changed, their vibrational stiffness were increased by 7 and 4.9%, respectively, which indicated that airfoil concavity significantly improved structural robustness.


2017 ◽  
Vol 139 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth W. Van Treuren ◽  
Andrew W. Hays

Four airfoils typical to small-scale wind turbines were studied for noise generation: Eppler 387, NREL S823, NACA 0012, and NACA 4412. Wind tunnel sound pressure level (SPL) data were collected directly downstream of the airfoil for angles of attack from −10 deg to 25 deg and for Reynolds numbers from 50,000 to 200,000. Vertical and horizontal wake traverses define the extent of the noise generated. The data were analyzed by frequency and compared with a noise prediction from NREL AirFoil Noise (NAFNoise). The noise trends found can be applied to improve other airfoil selection when designing small-scale wind turbines.


Author(s):  
Chunli Zhu ◽  
Hassan Hemida ◽  
Dominic Flynn ◽  
Chris Baker ◽  
Xifeng Liang ◽  
...  

The flow field and sound propagation around a three-coach 1/8th scale high-speed passenger train were obtained using a detached-eddy simulation and the Ffowcs-Williams and Hawkings acoustic analogy. The Reynolds number of flow based on the train height and speed was 2,000,000. The numerical results of the flow and aeroacoustic fields were validated using wind tunnel experiments and full-scale data, respectively. Features of overall sound pressure level, sound pressure level and A-weighted sound pressure level of typical measuring points are discussed. The sound propagated by a high-speed train is shown as a broadband noise spectrum including tonal component, where high sound pressure levels are concentrated on the low-frequency range from 10 Hz to 300 Hz. The inter-carriage gap is found to cause distinct tonal noise in contrast to the other parts of the train that cause a broadband noise. The negative log law has been used to study the influence of distance from the centre of track on the sound pressure level, where a good fit is shown at low-frequency ranges. The peak values of A-weighted sound pressure level from both full-scale experiment and simulation results occur at approximately 1 kHz, where simulation results show almost the same range as the experiment. The surface of each component of the train as well as the whole train are chosen as the integral surface for the Ffowcs-Williams and Hawkings computation of the far-field noise characteristics. It was found that the sound source generated by a high-speed train is mainly dipole, and the largest noise was obtained from the leading bogie. The results of this paper provide, for the first time, a better understanding of the aeroacoustic field around a three-coach train model, and the paper has the potential to assist engineers to design high-speed trains with aeroacoustic noise reduction in a better manner.


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