Wind turbine sound power measurements

Keith, Stephen E.; Feder, Katya; Voicescu, Sonia A.; Soukhovtsev, Victor; Denning, Allison; Tsang, Jason; Broner, Norm; Richarz, Werner; Berg, Frits van den

doi:10.1121/1.4942405

Cited by 23 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 5 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The results were presented in six publications, addressing effects on sleep, stress, quality of life, noise annoyance and health effects and a separate paper on the effect of shadow flicker on annoyance. Also, two papers were published describing the assessment of sound levels near wind turbines and near receivers [82,83]. The Japanese study by Kakeyama et al [66,67] pertains a field study with structured face-to-face interviews at 34 study sites and 16 control sites.…”

Section: Evidence Since 2015 Based On New Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health Effects Related to Wind Turbine Sound, Including Low-Frequency Sound and Infrasound

Kamp

Berg

2017

Acoust Aust

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A narrative review of observational and experimental studies was conducted to assess the association between exposure to wind turbine sound and its components and health effects in the general population. Literature databases Scopus, Medline and Embase and additional bibliographic sources such as reference sections of key publications and journal databases were systematically searched for peer-reviewed studies published from 2009 to 2017. For the period until early 2015 only reviews were included, while for the period between January 2015 and January 2017 all relevant publications were screened. Ten reviews and 22 studies met the inclusion criteria. Most studies examined subjective annoyance as the primary outcome, indicating an association between exposure levels and the percentage highly annoyed. Sound from wind turbines leads to a higher percentage of highly annoyed when compared to other sound sources. Annoyance due to aspects, like shadow flicker, the visual (in) appropriateness in the landscape and blinking lights, can add to the noise annoyance. There is no evidence of a specific effect of the low-frequency component nor of infrasound. There are indications that the rhythmic pressure pulses on a building can lead to additional annoyance indoors. Personal characteristics such as noise sensitivity, privacy issues and social acceptance, benefits and attitudes, the local situation and the conditions of planning a wind farm also play a role in reported annoyance. Less data are available to evaluate the effects of wind turbines on sleep and long-term health effects. Sleep disturbance as well as other health effects in the vicinity of wind turbines was found to be related to annoyance, rather than directly to exposure.

show abstract

Section: Evidence Since 2015 Based On New Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health Effects Related to Wind Turbine Sound, Including Low-Frequency Sound and Infrasound

Kamp

Berg

2017

Acoust Aust

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Conclusions from the CNHS do not necessarily extrapolate beyond the study sample because the communities in the study may have important differences when compared to others in Canada, or elsewhere. Similarly, the findings are representative only of areas where long-term outdoor WTN levels do not exceed 46 dBA (or 63 dBC) [4,5] and for individuals between the ages of 18 and 79 years. It should be acknowledged that long-term WTN calculations do not investigate specific noise characteristics, such as amplitude modulation and/or the presence of tones and are insensitive to very brief changes in WTN levels.…”

Section: Study Strengths and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) 3 and the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS) 4 [23,24] are two large-scale population-based surveys routinely conducted by Statistics Canada to collect nationally representative health data on Canadians. These studies are weighted to account for the distribution of Canadians by sex and age.…”

Section: The Prevalence Of Health Effects In the Lowest Wtn Category mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The CCHS produces an annual microdata file and a file combining two years of data [23]. 4 The Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS) is a survey conducted by Statistics Canada with the objective of collecting information on Canadians' health. The CHMS includes an in-home interview and a collection of physical measures on a wide range of outcomes, including blood pressure, height, weight, bone density, hearing, and vision.…”

Section: The Prevalence Of Health Effects In the Lowest Wtn Category mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Clarifications on the Design and Interpretation of Conclusions from Health Canada’s Study on Wind Turbine Noise and Health

et al. 2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It has been extensively communicated that Health Canada's Community Noise and Health Study (CNHS) did not find positive associations between wind turbine noise (WTN) levels and any of the evaluated health outcomes, beyond an increase in the prevalence of high annoyance toward several wind turbine features. The authors emphasize that this general conclusion remains bound by the study strengths and limitations. Following the publication of the CNHS findings, there has been interest among some individuals to present alternative interpretations of the results originally reported by Michaud et al. (J Acoust Soc Am 139(3):1443-1454, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4942391). While recognizing the importance of independent scientific re-evaluation and/or reinterpretation, this commentary serves to clarify and, where necessary, correct some of the information put forward by others. One factor that has been re-evaluated by external stakeholders is the subsample of participants that comprise the lowest WTN category. In their reanalysis, they have eliminated this category, or introduced alternative comparative data. This paper identifies substantial issues associated with the re-evaluation put forth. To thoroughly address these issues and to avoid further confusion or misinterpretation, the authors of the CNHS provide a comparison between the CNHS health condition prevalence data and nationally representative health-based surveys conducted in Canada during the same calendar year. In addition, this paper responds to comments received to date on the CNHS, including the study's age range, the generalization of findings, the provision of raw data, and conclusions on the association between WTN level and health.

show abstract

“…For large horizontal axis wind turbines, with total source power levels easily exceeding 100 dBA when operating near their maximum power production, a propagation distance of minimum 1 km from the source should be attained. Knowing that wind turbine noise emission spectra typically show a maximum near the octave band of 1 kHz [15,16], and given that sufficiently detailed wave propagation techniques need sub-wavelength discretisation, the numerical problem becomes challenging regarding spatio-temporal discretisation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sound propagation from a ridge wind turbine across a valley

Renterghem

2017

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

SummarySound propagation outdoors can be strongly affected by ground topography. The existence of hills and valleys between a source and receiver can lead to the shielding or focussing of sound waves. Such effects can result in significant variations in received sound levels. In addition, wind speed and air temperature gradients in the atmospheric boundary layer also play an important role. All of the foregoing factors can become especially important for the case of wind turbines located on a ridge overlooking a valley. Ridges are often selected for wind turbines in order to increase their energy capture potential through the wind speed up effects often experienced in such locations. In this paper, a hybrid calculation method is presented to model such a case, relying on an analytical solution for sound diffraction around an impedance cylinder and the conformal mapping (CM) Green's Function Parabolic Equation (GFPE) technique. The various aspects of the model have been successfully validated against alternative prediction methods. Example calculations with this hybrid analytical-CM-GFPE model show the complex sound pressure level distribution across the valley and the effect of valley ground type. The proposed method has the potential to include the effect of refraction through the inclusion of complex wind and temperature fields, although this aspect has been highly simplified in the current simulations.

show abstract

Wind turbine sound power measurements

Cited by 23 publications

References 5 publications

Health Effects Related to Wind Turbine Sound, Including Low-Frequency Sound and Infrasound

Health Effects Related to Wind Turbine Sound, Including Low-Frequency Sound and Infrasound

Clarifications on the Design and Interpretation of Conclusions from Health Canada’s Study on Wind Turbine Noise and Health

Sound propagation from a ridge wind turbine across a valley

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About