EN standards for road traffic Noise Reducing Devices and railway Noise Barriers: state of the art

Started in the early 90\u2019s, a first set of European (EN) Standards has been drafted by the CEN/TC226/WG6 working group of experts: this set of standards includes, under a global product standard (EN14388), references to acoustic and non-acoustic supporting standards. In more than 20 years, many parts of this set have been revised, thanks to new assessment and /or measurement methods, the most important challenge being to establish measurement methods that are completely in line with the effective intended use of the devices, i.e. outside buildings, either in free-field conditions or in more complex situations with multiple reflections. On the other hand, another working group has been started as the CEN/TC256/SC1/WG40, on a similar base, but adapted to the specific intended use along railways. This paper will present the state of those two set of standards as of today, and in which direction they will be revised in the coming future, thanks to the outcome of new researches as QUIESST, amongst others. The final objective of those standards is to improve the use of efficient and sustainable noise reducing devices along the highway and railway networks

The European standards for roads and railways noise barriers: state of the art 2015

This paper highlights the 2015 state of the two parallel packages of European standards on noise barriers and related devices acting on airborne sound propagation: one for roads, the other for railways. The first package has been developed by CEN/TC226/WG6. As in the road sector noise barriers are under the CPR 305/2011, the package includes a harmonized standard (EN 14388) and a set of supporting standards for testing or calculating the relevant characteristics: sound absorption, sound insulation, effectiveness of added devices on the top edge, mechanical and safety characteristics etc. Recently, a new specific standard about fire reaction has been added; moreover, a brand new standard on the sustainability of noise reducing devices is being drafted. The second package is being developed by CEN/TC256/SC1/WG40. In the railway sector, noise barriers are considered outside CPR 305/2011 but conforming to the Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSI). While the main characteristics of noise reducing devices remain the same, WG40 adapted to railways and improved the existing standards for roads. Moreover, some specific standards have been drafted and are on the way to publication: one presenting a calculation method for the mechanical performance under dynamic loadings caused by passing trains and the other on the resistance to fatigue due to the same loadings. Some standards on the evaluation of long-term performance of noise reducing devices are also under consideration

EN 14388: European standard for road traffic noise reducing devices: state of the art as from August 2010

Twenty years ago (1990), the European Standardization Committee (CEN) started a working group about “noise reducing devices” (NRD) under the frame of the Technical Committee TC226 “Road Equipments”. About the acoustic performance standards, three have been harmonized since 1997; they are based on the ISO 354 and ISO 140 for measurements in laboratories; two TS (Technical Supports) were also published in 2003: they are defining in situ methods for measuring sound absorption and airborne sound insulation, but also allow to characterize sound diffraction. Today, the whole package of supporting standards is under complete revision: the actual progress of the corresponding supporting standards is presented. The non acoustic performance standards, dealing with products specifications, long term per-formances, and non-acoustic performances will also be briefly presented as they concern how to keep NRD performing correctly for many years

Sustainability criteria for standardisation of noise reducing devices, http://www.acoustics.asn.au/conference_proceedings/INTERNOISE2014/index.htm

NoThis paper presents an overview of generic database of sustainability criteria values for a range of noise reducing devices (NRDs) for surface transport developed as part of the research carried out in the EU project "Quietening the Environment for a Sustainable Surface Transport" (QUIESST) (1) and how these criteria can be used for sustainability assessment of noise barriers standards. The NRD Industry has been involved in this research and NRD's manufacturers have always shown a great interest in sustainability assessment. This is coupled with the new Construction Product Regulation (305/2011/EU -CPR) (2) that came into force in July 2013 that promotes a new approach in products qualification based on the declaration of performance against seven essential requirements. Sustainability has been specifically addressed with the new 7th basic requirement, 'sustainable usage of natural resources'. The method developed within this research is used to define evaluation procedures to meet sustainability as the 7th basic requirement as part of new standards.EU 7th Framework Programm

Holistic optimisation of noise reducing devices

International audienceThe work presented in this paper is part of the QUIESST European project, in which one of the objective is to perform multi-objective holistic optimisations of noise reducing devices. We present here optimisation results concerning the extrinsic performances of noise barriers. The performances under interest are acoustical, economical and environmental. The variety of noise barriers considered is very wide, ranging from straight and flat barriers, to rough or capped barriers. A total number of nine noise reducing device families are optimised. Acoustical performances are obtained from numerical calculations: the Boundary Element Method (in 2D) is used to obtain relative sound pressure levels at a set of receivers in different situations. Theses situations include road and rail sources; rural and urban cases; flat, embanked and depressed topographies. The economical performance is calculated according to the maintenance cost of the different materials in use in the barrier. Four environmental performances indicators are considered; their calculation is based on a life-cycle assessment analysis. All performances are expressed as a gain (or loss) relative to a reference screen. It is shown that the optimisation procedure allows one to obtain a wide variety of optimised noise reducing devices, and hence provides a helpful design tool by allowing one to focus on specific parameters

QUIESST: third-term progress report (invited paper)

none7The research QUIESST (QUIetening the Environment of Sustainable Surface Transport) started in November 2010 for 36 months: it targets a better knowledge about the noise barriers performances, either their intrinsic (product) or their extrinsic performances (works, environment, population). QUIESST objectives and work schedule have been presented at InterNoise 2010, as well as its mid-term progress report at InterNoise 2011. This paper will present the progress report at its third-term (6 months to its end): the technical work packages are WP2 (Relationship near-field / far field for sound reflection), WP3 (Improvement of the in-situ method for sound absorption/reflection and insulation measurement), WP4 (Noise performance evaluation: comparison of laboratory and in-situ methods), WP5 (Holistic optimization and global noise impact) and WP6 (Sustainability). Special attention will be done on the achieved results and the realistic final objectives we could reach as conclusions of the research.mixedClairbois J-P.; de Roo F.; Garai M.; Conter M.; Defrance J.; Oltean-Dumbrava C.; Fusco I.Clairbois J-P.; de Roo F.; Garai M.; Conter M.; Defrance J.; Oltean-Dumbrava C.; Fusco I

QUIESST: toward a better knowledge and understanding of how efficient noise barriers could actually be

Since the early 80\u2019s, one models noise propagation, in the early 90\u2019s one started to standardize how to measure the intrinsic characteristics of manufactured noise barriers: in 1997, the EU funded ADRIENNE research: it was a first step, but many problems still remained. Since years, all the noise propagation software are still modeling noise barriers while characterizing those rather roughly, if not basically, whatever it is for sound absorption, airborne sound insulation or sound diffraction. The EU funded QUIESST research aims to drastically improve the knowledge and un-derstanding of how noise barriers actually works, in function of all their intrinsic characteristics and the environment within which they are installed. This paper introduces QUIESST\u2019s objectives / work schedule for the next 3 years

QUIESST: third-term progress report

The research QUIESST (QUIetening the Environment of Sustainable Surface Transport) started in November 2010 for 36 months: it targets a better knowledge about the noise barriers performances, either their intrinsic (product) or their extrinsic performances (works, environment, population). QUIEEST objectives and work schedule have been presented at INTERNOISE 2010, as well as its mid-term progress report at INTERNOISE 2011. This paper will present the progress report at its third-term (6 months to its end): the technical work packages are WP2 (Relationship near-field / far field for sound reflection), WP3 (Improvement of the in-situ method for sound absorption and insulation measurement), WP4 (Noise performance evaluation: comparison of laboratory and in-situ methods), WP5 (Holistic optimization and global noise impact) and WP6 (Sustainability). Special attention will be done on the achieved results and the realistic final objectives we could reach as conclusions of the research

Characterizing noise barriers: SOPRANOISE half-term progress report

SOPRANOISE targets simplified assessment of the in-situ intrinsic acoustic performances of road/railway noise barriers. This paper presents its half-term progress. The research is divided in 5 Work Packages, the scientific ones being WP2 to WP5. WP2 is about establishing a State Of the Art (SoA) on the characterization of the intrinsic performances: it is now finished and presented in 2 other papers by Conter and Fuchs. WP3 is about in-situ inspection tools: based on a review/questionnaire, an inspection protocol has been developed allowing simplified assessments mainly based on visual inspections and characterization of possible defects; WP3 is now in its final testing phase. WP4 is about designing a brand new “quick and safe methods” that could take place “in between” the inspection tools and the standardized EN 1793-5 and -6; the research and development phases of WP4 are now finished, while its validation along highways is now scheduled. Finally, WP5 is about the use of noise barriers in the European market and the final report: a synthesis on the physical behavior of noise barriers and the physical significance of the test methods has been done, as well a SoA on the effective use of noise barriers; the results will be presented

QUIESST: toward a better knowledge and understanding of how efficient noise barriers could actually be

Since the early 80\u2019s, one models noise propagation; in the early 90\u2019s one started to standardize how to measure the intrinsic characteristics of manufactured noise barriers: in 1997, the EU funded ADRIENNE research; it was a first step, but many problems still remained. Since many years, all the noise propagation software are still modeling noise barriers while characterizing those rather roughly, if not basically, whatever it is for sound absorption, airborne sound insulation or sound diffraction. The EU funded QUIESST research aims to drastically improve the knowledge and understanding of how noise barriers actually works, in function of all their intrinsic characteristics and the environment within which they are installed. This paper introduces QUIESST\u2019s objectives / work schedule for the next 3 years