Where do we stand on standards for noise

Abstract

Almost 40 years ago, Henning von Gierke organized and chaired a symposium at the ASA Cleveland meeting with the above title. The chairs of nine writing groups of the ANSI-predecessor working on methods for the measurement and rating of noise presented summaries of their tasks and their progress in 1968. If a symposium on the same theme were to be held today, there would be reports from fifty-four working groups of ANSI Accredited Standards Committees on Acoustics (S1), Bioacoustics (S3), and Noise (S12). These committees are cornerstones of the ASA standards program. As the first ASA Standards Director, Henning revitalized the Society's standards program to become the productive organization it is today. The progress in standardization in America during the past four decades is a tribute to his foresight and participation. He also contributed to international standardization as the leader of the U.S. delegation to ISO TC/43 (Acoustics) and its subcommittee on noise (SC1), and for three decades he chaired ISO TC/108/SC4 on human exposure to mechanical shock and vibration. Trained as an engineer, Henning was a leader of national and international standardization efforts to relate the mechanical energy in sound waves to the responses of the human organism.