Noise Levels Produced by Agricultural Machinery and Different Farming Processes

Abstract

A characteristic trait of Greek agriculture the last 20 years has been its intense mechanisation. Agricultural machineries are used in almost all phases of daily farming activities in small and large households for a few hours or for as long as 12 or 15 hours. The produced noise usually constitutes danger for the health and the safety of operators. Moreover, it increases the level of environmental noise, particularly in regions of general residence, as well as in tourist regions. Sound-pressure levels produced during the operation of agriculture machineries under different farming processes have been measured. Measurements taken at the height of the operator have been related to European damage-risk criteria, to the requirements of the national legislation for noise protection, and to the maximum environmental permissible noise levels. The result is that permissible noise criteria cannot be met during farming processes. One octave and one-third octave bandwidth measurements have shown the noise content in low-frequency octave band centre frequencies.