Subjective evaluation of the acoustic annoyance in a large passenger aircraft cabin

Abstract

People demand better acoustic comfort for higher travelling quality and security in aircraft. It is necessary to evaluate and predict the subjective annoyance caused by the noise in aircraft cabins. This study investigates the noise-induced annoyance in a large passenger aircraft. We recorded the noise at 21 positions in the aircraft cabin without passengers and selected 21 stimuli during the cruising. Each stimulus has a duration of 5 seconds and a sound pressure level in the range of 72-81dB(A). The psychoacoustic parameters such as loudness, sharpness, roughness and articulation index were also calculated. Twenty-four subjects evaluated the subjective annoyance of the stimuli by the absolute magnitude estimation method. Results showed the noise annoyance at the middle section of the cabin is significantly higher than that at the front or rear section. The principal component analysis and correlation analysis found that annoyance is mainly affected by loudness, sharpness and roughness and dominated by loudness. We proposed a multiple linear regression model between the subjective magnitudes of annoyance and the psychoacoustic parameters to evaluate and predict the noise annoyance in the aircraft cabin well.