Protection Agency Methodology Research Articles

In recent papers [P. D. Schomer, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 64, 1627–1632 (1978) and P. D. Schomer, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 62, 396–399 (1977)], the author reanalyzed the psychoacoustic data on the annoyance of blast noise to support the use of the US Environmental Protection Agency's blast noise methodology, the C‐weighted day/night level (LCdn), and to prove that the annoyance caused by a LCdn and an A‐weighted Ldn of equal magnitude are equivalent. An analysis of the original psychoacoustic data and the recent papers by Dr. Schomer has lead to the conclusion that the two descriptors do not cause equal annoyance. A simple relationship has been derived to equate the two descriptors on an equal annoyance basis. Several statistical distributions of blast noise will be compared to demonstrate the differences in assessment that would result from the application of the US Environmental Protection Agency's methodology, the implied revision, and the relationship derived by the authors of this paper.