Design solutions to mitigate high noise levels on small fishing vessels

Abstract

Occupational noise exposure is a documented risk among fish harvesters worldwide. So far, researchers’ main concern has been the detection of onboard noise levels causing noise-induced hearing loss. However, this fails to consider the relationship between hazardous noise levels and noise-induced fatigue.Differently from previous studies and regulatory standards, this research activity focuses on the development of noise control interventions to mitigate the risk of noise-induced fatigue on small fishing vessels. The procedure uses i) Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA), ii) experimental measurements, iii) graph theory to identify K-dominant transmission paths, and iv) a study of the contribution of airborne and structure-borne noise sources to the overall noise on board. We apply it to a case-study vessel from the small-scale fishing fleet of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL). The results show that this procedure is a powerful tool to analyse noise propagation on small fishing vessels, and to analyse the effectiveness of noise control solutions. We show that noise transmission on this vessel is airborne and secondary structure-borne, and identify feasible and economical solutions to mitigate noise on board. We believe that these solutions can be applied to other small decked fishing vessels from NL.