Citation

Nykaza ET, Valente D. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 2012; 132(3): 2086.

Affiliation

US Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center, 2902 Newmark Drive, Champaign, IL 61822edward.t.nykaza@erdc.dren.mil.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, American Institute of Physics)

DOI

10.1121/1.4755703

PMID

22979785

Abstract

It is common for residents living on and around military installations to be exposed to a significant amount of high amplitude impulsive noise, primarily from large weaponry and other blast noise producing sources. Yet in comparison to transportation noise, there have been relatively few studies of how communities and individuals respond to this type of noise. This presentation will report the latest findings from recent human response to blast noise studies conducted at three military installations. Across all sites, blast noise has been found to be the most annoying noise source, despite the fact that a large percentage of respondents reported that their neighborhood was a good or excellent place to live. It has also been found that each community and individual has a unique tolerance to blast noise. Furthermore, individuals use a different and finite portion of the response scale, suggesting that the current methodology of fixating on the percent of the population that is highly annoyed may inadvertently be discarding useful response information. Comparisons between respondents living on- and off-post within and between study sites will be made, with special emphasis placed on differences between the community tolerance level and the community tolerance spread for each site.

Language: en