Os conceitos de arquitetura dão novas dimensões aos projetos de enclausuramento de fontes ruidosas por cabines acústicas no chão de fábrica, no que diz respeito às relações entre o ruído industrial e suas implicações no homem quanto à perda da audição, perda de produtividade e riscos de acidentes bem como as metodologias para controle do ruído e a inter-relação entre o ruído industrial e sua vizinhança. O objetivo foi o de desenvolver um método de projetar e construir cabines acústicas para o controle do ruído industrial. As cabines acústicas existentes são desenvolvidas visando apenas o controle do ruído. Entretanto, na arquitetura, outras variáveis como o conforto visual, a ergonomia, a segurança, a visibilidade e o desempenho também devem ser consideradas. Fez-se necessário desenvolver um método prático de avaliação do Ruído Industrial, para dar subsídios às propostas de soluções arquitetônicas que o controlem. O método prático consiste efetuar medidas de ruído em dB(A) nos pontos modais de uma malha ajustada para as dimensões do edifício industrial. O resultado das medições possibilita a visualização da distribuição do ruído através de isossônicas, permitindo que as soluções sejam avaliadas a qualquer momento, tanto do ponto de vista da metodologia, como dos resultados projetados e efetivamente alcançados. A proposta é demonstrar, para alguns casos reais, como o método de controle facilita a análise e propicia correções 6 quando necessário. Conhecemos os métodos tradicionais contidos na NR-15 e suas implicações nas áreas industriais. A redução do ruído na fonte é a melhor opção para o tratamento acústico na indústria. A diminuição do ruído reverberante, pelo aumento das superfícies absorventes internas ao edifício industrial, reduz também o nível sonoro a que os operários estão submetidos, mas torna os operadores das máquinas excessivamente expostos, pois seus postos de trabalho ficam interpostos entre as fontes do ruído e o tratamento acústico, recebendo, portanto, toda a energia emitida. A redução do ruído na fonte tem resultados satisfatórios, pois diminui em muito os custos do tratamento acústico e livra o operário do recebimento direto da dose de ruído. Para este trabalho, são selecionados exemplos de locais que apresentam condições excessivas de ruído e necessitam de tratamento, os quais propiciam a implantação da metodologia desenvolvida. / The architectural concepts give new dimensions to noisy source enclosure projects for performance should also be considered. The relationship between industrial noise, their implications on man as in hearing loss, loss of productivity, rising accident, methodologies of control and the interrelationship between the industrial noise and its neighborhood is considered. The goal was to develop a design method for building acoustic cabins for industrial noise control. The existing acoustic hoods are developed targeting only the noise control. However, in architecture, other variables such as visual comfort, ergonomics, safety, visibility beyond the performance should be considered. Developing a practical method for evaluating the industrial noise is necessary to give subsidies to propose architectural solutions that control the industrial noise. The practical method consists of performing measurements in dB (A) in the modal points of a mesh adjusted to the dimensions of the building industry. The results of measurements allow the visualization of the noise distribution through isossonics that can evaluate at any time the solutions, both from the standpoint of methodology as projected results and effectively achieved. The proposal demonstrates some real cases in which the control method facilitates the analysis and provides corrections when necessary. We know the traditional methods contained in NR 15 and its implications in the industrial areas. The noise reduction at source is the best option for the acoustic treatment in the industry. The reverberant noise reduction, by increasing absorbent surfaces inside the industrial building, also reduces the sound level that the operators are submitted, but makes machine operators excessively exposed because their jobs are interposed between the noise sources and acoustic treatment, receiving all the emitted energy. The source noise reduction has satisfactory results because it reduces considerably the acoustic treatment costs and free the worker from receiving direct noise dose. For this work, examples of sites that have excessive noise conditions, and need treatment, are selected, which provide the implementation of the developed methodology.

"Speech enhancement in an automobile is a challenging problem because interference can come from engine noise, fans, music, wind, road noise, reverberation, echo, and passengers engaging in other conversations. Hands-free microphones make the situation worse because the strength of the desired speech signal reduces with increased distance between the microphone and talker. Automobile safety is improved when the driver can use a hands-free interface to phones and other devices instead of taking his eyes off the road. The demand for high quality hands-free communication in the automobile requires the introduction of more powerful algorithms. This thesis shows that a unique combination of five algorithms can achieve superior speech enhancement for a hands-free system when compared to beamforming or spectral subtraction alone. Several different designs were analyzed and tested before converging on the configuration that achieved the best results. Beamforming, voice activity detection, spectral subtraction, perceptual nonlinear weighting, and talker isolation via pitch tracking all work together in a complementary iterative manner to create a speech enhancement system capable of significantly enhancing real world speech signals. The following conclusions are supported by the simulation results using data recorded in a car and are in strong agreement with theory. Adaptive beamforming, like the Generalized Side-lobe Canceller (GSC), can be effectively used if the filters only adapt during silent data frames because too much of the desired speech is cancelled otherwise. Spectral subtraction removes stationary noise while perceptual weighting prevents the introduction of offensive audible noise artifacts. Talker isolation via pitch tracking can perform better when used after beamforming and spectral subtraction because of the higher accuracy obtained after initial noise removal. Iterating the algorithm once increases the accuracy of the Voice Activity Detection (VAD), which improves the overall performance of the algorithm. Placing the microphone(s) on the ceiling above the head and slightly forward of the desired talker appears to be the best location in an automobile based on the experiments performed in this thesis. Objective speech quality measures show that the algorithm removes a majority of the stationary noise in a hands-free environment of an automobile with relatively minimal speech distortion."

Thesis. 1978. M.C.P.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Includes bibliographical references. / M.C.P.

Os conceitos de arquitetura dão novas dimensões aos projetos de enclausuramento de fontes ruidosas por cabines acústicas no chão de fábrica, no que diz respeito às relações entre o ruído industrial e suas implicações no homem quanto à perda da audição, perda de produtividade e riscos de acidentes bem como as metodologias para controle do ruído e a inter-relação entre o ruído industrial e sua vizinhança. O objetivo foi o de desenvolver um método de projetar e construir cabines acústicas para o controle do ruído industrial. As cabines acústicas existentes são desenvolvidas visando apenas o controle do ruído. Entretanto, na arquitetura, outras variáveis como o conforto visual, a ergonomia, a segurança, a visibilidade e o desempenho também devem ser consideradas. Fez-se necessário desenvolver um método prático de avaliação do Ruído Industrial, para dar subsídios às propostas de soluções arquitetônicas que o controlem. O método prático consiste efetuar medidas de ruído em dB(A) nos pontos modais de uma malha ajustada para as dimensões do edifício industrial. O resultado das medições possibilita a visualização da distribuição do ruído através de isossônicas, permitindo que as soluções sejam avaliadas a qualquer momento, tanto do ponto de vista da metodologia, como dos resultados projetados e efetivamente alcançados. A proposta é demonstrar, para alguns casos reais, como o método de controle facilita a análise e propicia correções 6 quando necessário. Conhecemos os métodos tradicionais contidos na NR-15 e suas implicações nas áreas industriais. A redução do ruído na fonte é a melhor opção para o tratamento acústico na indústria. A diminuição do ruído reverberante, pelo aumento das superfícies absorventes internas ao edifício industrial, reduz também o nível sonoro a que os operários estão submetidos, mas torna os operadores das máquinas excessivamente expostos, pois seus postos de trabalho ficam interpostos entre as fontes do ruído e o tratamento acústico, recebendo, portanto, toda a energia emitida. A redução do ruído na fonte tem resultados satisfatórios, pois diminui em muito os custos do tratamento acústico e livra o operário do recebimento direto da dose de ruído. Para este trabalho, são selecionados exemplos de locais que apresentam condições excessivas de ruído e necessitam de tratamento, os quais propiciam a implantação da metodologia desenvolvida. / The architectural concepts give new dimensions to noisy source enclosure projects for performance should also be considered. The relationship between industrial noise, their implications on man as in hearing loss, loss of productivity, rising accident, methodologies of control and the interrelationship between the industrial noise and its neighborhood is considered. The goal was to develop a design method for building acoustic cabins for industrial noise control. The existing acoustic hoods are developed targeting only the noise control. However, in architecture, other variables such as visual comfort, ergonomics, safety, visibility beyond the performance should be considered. Developing a practical method for evaluating the industrial noise is necessary to give subsidies to propose architectural solutions that control the industrial noise. The practical method consists of performing measurements in dB (A) in the modal points of a mesh adjusted to the dimensions of the building industry. The results of measurements allow the visualization of the noise distribution through isossonics that can evaluate at any time the solutions, both from the standpoint of methodology as projected results and effectively achieved. The proposal demonstrates some real cases in which the control method facilitates the analysis and provides corrections when necessary. We know the traditional methods contained in NR 15 and its implications in the industrial areas. The noise reduction at source is the best option for the acoustic treatment in the industry. The reverberant noise reduction, by increasing absorbent surfaces inside the industrial building, also reduces the sound level that the operators are submitted, but makes machine operators excessively exposed because their jobs are interposed between the noise sources and acoustic treatment, receiving all the emitted energy. The source noise reduction has satisfactory results because it reduces considerably the acoustic treatment costs and free the worker from receiving direct noise dose. For this work, examples of sites that have excessive noise conditions, and need treatment, are selected, which provide the implementation of the developed methodology.

The need for hearing protection in industry has evolved from the growing awareness of the detrimental effects of noise on hearing and recent legislation enacted to protect the hearing of noise-exposed employees through the use of hearing conservation programs. In lieu of expensive or impractical engineering and administrative controls, personal hearing protection devices (HPDs) are considered to be the most practical and effective means of protecting employees from the damaging effects of noise in industry today.

This document reports on a research project aimed at developing a concrete acoustic barrier made from Recycled Aggregate (RA) Concrete. The research project was undertaken in response to the needs expressed by the Victorian concrete recycling industry. The industry, the scientific community conducting research into relevant disciplines, and the community at large, represented by Victorian government agencies, are of the opinion that there is a need to devise a higher value utilisation application for selected concrete recycling products. This document outlines the rationale and objectives of the research project which involves the examination of Recycled Concrete (RC) Aggregate, the design and examination of RA Concrete, and finally the development of an acoustic barrier made from RA Concrete. The literature review presented in this report examines aspects of concrete recycling and concrete technology pertaining to traditional and alternative constituent materials for concrete production. Firstly, the importance and influence of fine and coarse aggregate on basic properties of concrete is introduced. Secondly, an account on the use of alternative materials in concrete technology, especially of coarse recycled aggregates and supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) is described. Thirdly, some of the physical and mechanical properties and how the use of RC Aggregate and SCM changes these properties are discussed. Fourthly, a number of commonly used techniques and neutron scattering techniques to investigate aggregate and concrete properties are introduced and discussed. Fifthly, the porosity of aggregate and concrete including durability are specifically discussed and testing methods are reasoned. The literature review also discusses the use of no-fines concrete; its physical, mechanical and acoustic properties. Finally it presents an account of the use of concrete in transportation traffic noise attenuation devices. This document continues with an outline of a methodology that was adopted in this research project. It outlines experimental work aimed at examining the properties of RC Aggregate which amongst other properties includes porosity, particle size distribution, water absorption, shape and density. It continues examining RA Concrete properties and includes, among other properties, compressive strength, porosity and durability as well as sound absorption of acoustic barrier. The methodology introduces standard and purposely modified test procedures used in the examination of aggregates, concrete and acoustic barrier. An account of various research techniques is presented, spanning from simple visual observations to more sophisticated neutron scattering techniques. The summary of test procedures follows a description of test specimen composition and their sizes, and a suite of tested specimens. It also introduces statistical methods used to analyse test results. After a detailed description of the aggregate, concrete and RA Concrete acoustic barrier, the document outlines a summary of data generated through the experimental program of this research project. The data on fine aggregate, on selected 14/10mm coarse RC Aggregate, on concrete made from natural and recycled aggregate and on acoustic barrier are presented and discussed. Test results of various physical, mechanical and acoustic properties of aggregate, concrete and barrier are reported, analysed and discussed. The data from observations, visual assessment and scientific experimentation of specific properties are then crossed analysed in a search for relationships between properties of fine and coarse aggregates and properties of concrete made from such aggregates. A cross analysis of data on ?less-fines? RA Concrete and on the acoustic performance of barrier is examined, and the relationship between the volume of interconnected voids in a porous part of ?less-fines? concrete, and the sound absorption of acoustic barrier is discussed and reported. The document then presents a synthesis of the literature review results, project aims adopted within the experimental program and test results in the three main areas of this research project. These areas include recycled concrete aggregate, recycled aggregate concrete and acoustic barrier made from RA Concrete. Finally, conclusions reached through the course of this investigation are summarised and recommendations are proposed in relation to the RA Concrete acoustic barrier. The main conclusion is that selected RC Aggregate can be used in the production of concrete of a compressive strength of 25MPa, if the moisture content and water absorption in the aggregate are closely monitored, and the foreign material content is kept below 1.5%. The author concludes that acoustic barrier made from selected RC Aggregate has unique sound absorption characteristics that can easily be tunable by a selection of appropriate aggregate and by specific concrete mix designs. Recommendations for further research are also proposed.

Driven by the need to reduce the sound transmitted into aircraft cabins from the power plant, this thesis investigates the active control of sound transmitted through a structure into coupled enclosures. In particular, it examines alternatives to conventional microphone and accelerometer error sensors. This study establishes a design framework for the development and analysis of an active noise control system which can be applied to any complex vibro-acoustic system. The design approach has focused on using techniques presently used in industry to enable the transfer of the active noise control technology from the research stage into practical noise control systems. The structural and acoustic sub-systems are modelled using FEA to estimate the in vacuo structural modal response of the structure and the acoustic pressure modal response (with rigid boundary conditions) of the interior cavity. The acoustic and structural systems are then coupled using modal coupling theory. Within this framework, two novel error sensors aimed at overcoming observability problems suffered by traditional microphone and accelerometer sensors are investigated: namely, acoustic energy density sensors and shaped radiation modal vibration sensors. The principles of the measurement of energy density are discussed and the errors arising from its measurement using two and three-microphone sensor configurations are considered for a one-dimensional reactive sound field and a plane wave sound field. The error analysis encompasses finite separation effects, instrumentation errors (phase and sensitivity mismatches, and physical length errors), diffraction and interference effects, and other sources of error (mean flow and turbulence, temperature and humidity, statistical effects). Following the one-dimensional study, four 3-axis energy density sensor designs are proposed and error analysis is conducted over the same acoustic fields as for the one-dimensional study. The design and construction of the simplest arrangement of the 4 three-axis sensors is discussed with reference to design issues, performance and limitations. The strategy of using energy density control is investigated numerically for a purely acoustic system and a coupled panel-cavity system. Energy density control is shown to provide greater local and global control compared to that possible using an equivalent number of microphones. The performance of the control system is shown to be relatively insensitive to the placement of the energy density sensor. For an enclosed cavity system with high modal overlap, the zone of local control achieved by minimising energy density is found to be approximately the same as the zone of local control obtained when min-imising pressure and pressure gradient in a diffuse sound field. It is also shown that if there is only one control source used per energy density sensor, global control will be almost optimum. The addition of further control sources leads to an improvement in global control, however, the control is no longer optimal. The control system is found to be very tolerant of errors in the estimate of the energy density and thus the use of simpler energy density sensor designs is justified. Finally, an experiment is presented in which the global performance achieved by controlling a three-axis energy density sensor is compared with the performance achieved by minimising the acoustic potential energy and minimising the sum of squared pressures at a finite number of microphones. The experimental results are found to reflect the numerical results. The active minimisation of harmonic sound transmission into an arbitrarily shaped enclosure using error signals derived from structural vibration sensors is investigated numerically and experimentally. It is shown that by considering the dynamics of the coupled system, it is possible to derive a set of "e;structural radiation"e; modes which are orthogonal with respect to the global potential energy of the coupled acoustic space and which can be sensed by structural vibration sensors. Minimisation of the amplitudes of the "e;radiation modes"e; is thus guaranteed to minimise the interior acoustic potential energy. The coupled vibro-acoustic system under investigation is modelled using Finite Element Analysis which allows systems with complex geometries to be investigated rather than limiting the analysis to simple, analytically tractable systems. Issues regarding the practical implementation of sensing the orthonormal sets of structural radiation modes are discussed. Specific examples relating to the minimisation of the total acoustic potential energy within a curved rectangular panel and a coupled cavity are given, comparing the performance offered using vibration sensing of the radiation modes on the structure with the more traditional error sensing; namely, the discrete sensing of the structural kinetic energy on the structural boundary and the acoustic potential energy in the enclosed space approximated by the mean squared pressures at several locations. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Mechanical Engineering, 1999.

Traditional means of controlling sound radiated by electrical power transformers involve the construction of large expensive barriers or full enclosures, which cause maintainability and cooling problems. One promising alternative is to use active noise control to cancel the noise. This thesis is concerned with one of the many problems which need to be investigated to develop a practical active noise cancellation system for transformers. This work, in particular, is concerned with the physical system design which includes the selection of the control source types and the evaluation of the near-field sensing strategies. Loudspeakers have been widely used in the past as an acoustic source for canceling transformer noise. The principal disadvantage of using loudspeakers is that to achieve global noise control, a large number, driven by a multi-channel controller, are required. However, if large panels are used in place of loudspeakers as control sources, it is possible that the number of the control sources and complexity of the controller could be reduced substantially. In addition to reducing the number of control sources and simplifying their application, panel sound sources could also overcome some disadvantages of the loudspeakers, such as limited life and deterioration due to the weather. Thus, part of the work described in this thesis is concerned with the development of a resonant curved panel with a backing cavity as an acoustic type source. The advantages of using a curved panel rather than a flat panel are twofold: first a curved panel is more easily excited by the extensional motion of the piezoelectric patch actuators; and second, it is more difficult to adjust the resonance frequencies of the efficient modes of a flat panel than of a curved panel. The analytical models for the design of the panel cavity systems have been developed. As an example, a resonant curved panel with a backing cavity system was constructed and the sound radiation of the system was measured. Results show that a resonant panel-cavity sound source could be used as an alternative to a number of loudspeakers for active cancellation of electric power transformer noise. Due to the advantages of using the vibration type control sources, two types of vibration control sources (inertial electrodynamic shakers and piezoelectric patch actuators) were considered and the mechanical output of the inertial shakers has been compared with that of the piezoelectric actuators. In contrast with the piezoelectric actuators, the resonance frequencies of the inertial shakers can be tuned to the frequencies of interest using simple tuning procedures, so that the output efficiency of the shakers can be increased. The output performance was evaluated for two types of actuators by measuring the structural response of either a panel or a transformer when excited by the actuators at half their rated voltage input. Results demonstrated that a much larger output amplitude at the frequency of interest can be achieved by the tuned inertial type actuators. Two near-field sensing strategies, the minimization of the sum of the sound intensities and the minimization of the sum of the squared sound pressures, have been studied. A quadratic expression was derived for the minimization of the sum of the sound intensities in the near-field. To evaluate the control performances achieved using both sensing strategies, a flat-panel was modelled with a harmonic point force disturbance and several point force control sources. Simulation results show that the control performance could be improved by minimizing the sum of the sound intensities in the hydrodynamic near-field, provided that a very large number of error sensors were used, otherwise better results were achieved using near-field squared pressure sensing. Both sensing strategies were used to predict the noise reductions that resulted for the active noise control of a small transformer in the laboratory environment and for a large electrical power transformer on site. To optimize the locations of the control sources (for the large transformer on site) and the locations of the error sensors (for the small transformer in the laboratory environment), a genetic algorithm (GA), which is an evolutionary optimization technique, was employed as a search procedure to optimize the control source and error sensor locations. The results showed that the control source locations and/or the error sensor locations must be optimized to achieve the maximum sound reduction for either error sensing strategy, especially for the sound intensity minimization; otherwise, the sound field level may increase after control due to the character of the cost function (the sum of the sound intensities). The simulation results were experimentally validated for the small transformer in the laboratory environment. Due to the limitation of the number of controller channels, the control performance was only evaluated for squared pressure minimization. The results demonstrated that for the case of 8 control sources and 8 error sensors, at 100 Hz, an average sound pressure reduction of 15.8 dB was achieved when evaluated at 528 monitoring locations at 0.25 m intervals on a surface that surrounded the transformer. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Engineering (Department of Mechanical Engineering), 2000.

Noise generated by fluid power applications can be treated using bladder-style suppressors, and an optimal operating condition for these devices is sought in this thesis. Bladder-style suppressors employ a compliant nitrogen-charged bladder to create an impedance change within the system, reflecting the noise back to the source and preventing it from propagating downstream. The noise in a hydraulic system is created by a pump, the flow source in a hydraulic system, and can be separated into three categories: fluid-borne noise, structure-borne noise and airborne noise. Fluid-borne noise places addition stress on sealing surfaces, potentially causing leaks. Airborne noise can be uncomfortable, even hazardous depending on the level. Bladder-style suppressors primarily treat fluid-borne noise; however, it is seen in the literature that fluid-borne noise is the cause of structure-borne and airborne noise. This thesis presents an optimization method for finding the optimal charge pressure for implementation with a given system operating over a broad range of system pressures. The optimization weights suppressor performance by the spectral content of the fluid-borne noise as well as the duty cycle of the system. A single charge pressure works well over a small range of system pressures, though many fluid power applications operate over a larger range of system pressure than the usable range of a suppressor. For systems operating over an extremely broad pressure range, two suppressors charged to different pressures are used to treat the noise in the entire system pressure range. To determine suppressor performance experimental measurements were performed, and models developed, of the transmission loss of this type of device. A multi-microphone method using transfer function relationships between six sensors determines the transmission loss of the suppressor under test. An equivalent fluid model modeling the wave behavior both upstream and downstream, as well as within the suppressor, was created to predict suppressor transmission loss. Optimal configurations are found for a set of system pressures, charge pressures and duty cycles. Analysis of the results shows the time weighting has a more significant impact on the optimum charge pressure than the frequency weighting, as shown by duty cycles considered in this thesis. In addition, all charge pressures selected as optimal for either single suppressor optimizations or double suppressor optimizations, exhibit the highest transmission loss for a single system pressure in the pressure duty cycle for a simulated machine.

This thesis is aimed at identifying the noise sources of a wheeled tractor to reduce the noise levels below the legislative limits by controlling noise sources through proper methodologies. The study focuses firstly on identifying the noise sources of a wheeled tractor by using proper noise source identification techniques. These techniques can be summarized as sound intensity measurements, sound power level determination studies and spectral analysis of the noise data acquired in the tests. Simple sound intensity mapping techniques are used and the intensity contour maps are generated to identify the noise sources. Most important and effective noise sources are identified and the critical noise sources are focused to apply appropriate noise control strategies not only at the prototype production stages but also at the early design stages. Consequently, upon consideration of both structure-borne and flow-induced noise, the pass-by noise level and the operator&rsquo / s ear noise levels of the tractor are reduced by nearly 3 dB (A) through application of proper noise control strategies.