Military training and testing operations can cause significant noise impact on the surrounding area. Community response to noise in the form of complaints and/or political pressure, legal action, and damage claims, all hamper mission execution. One element of an effective noise management strategy is the ability to accurately forecast and assess community noise exposure. Evaluation of impacts of weapons noise on humans and animals requires knowledge of both physiological and psychological reactions to weapons noise. Assessment of these effects in any given scenario requires algorithms for prediction of the noise field around the weapon, from small to large distances. Army-developed BNOISE software--distributed and supported by the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine (USACHPPM)--enabled calculation and display of blast noise exposure contours resulting from specified operations involving large guns and explosive charges. The Army identified a need to upgrade BNOISE to improve its noise-assessment capability. |
Description of Research