Indoor human response to blast noise measured in situ.

Abstract

As a result of suburban sprawl, the number of people living near military installations is drastically increasing. Coupled with an escalation of military activities and preparedness, the potential for noise generated by an installation to impact the surrounding communities has grown, especially for large amplitude impulsive events such as those generated during artillery training exercises. To assess the effect of blast noise on individuals living near installations, a large scale in situ study has been performed. The homes of study participants were instrumented and outdoor/indoor blast signature pairs of routine installation activities were captured over the course of 1 year. Participants filled out short questionnaires whenever they heard blast noise events. Measurements of single events at subjects’ homes along with their responses present unique data with which to investigate the human response to blast noise on an event‐by‐event basis. In this presentation, the characteristics of the noise typically experienced by residents in their own homes will be examined and used to create dose‐response relationships. Comparison will be made of dose‐response curves based on annoyance, interference, and loudness as a function of level‐based metrics, and as a function of a variety of psychoacoustic metrics. [Work supported by the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program.]