Single Event Comparisons of Predicted and Measured Sound at Vancouver International Airport
Open Access
- Author:
- Biwalkar, Manasi
- Graduate Program:
- Acoustics
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- August 11, 2017
- Committee Members:
- Victor Ward Sparrow, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Michelle Celine Vigeant, Committee Member
Daniel Allen Russell, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Acoustics
Aircraft events
Airport noise
Vancouver
Radar
Co-ordinate
NORD2000
Great circle method
AEDT
Comparisons
NPD data
CFSR - Abstract:
- A recent project in the ASCENT Center of Excellence at Penn State and Purdue University is focused on validating aircraft noise models and quantifying uncertainties of both model prediction and measurement. Penn State’s contribution leans towards assessing the uncertainties in airport noise predictions due to consideration of a real meteorological data versus a vertically homogeneous atmosphere. The real atmosphere is observed to have a wind and temperature gradient which affects the sound speed profile. Refraction causes bending of sound rays and potentially affects the total intensity of the sound received at a particular location on the ground. This effect was analyzed using the NORD2000 outdoor sound propagation model. A MATLAB code was written to run the NORD2000 propagation code for three different sound speed profiles such as the homogeneous, linear and logarithmic sound speed profiles. This thesis compares simulation results obtained from the three cases in the NORD2000 code and an in-house propagation code with the sound pressure levels obtained at noise monitors. The airport considered was Vancouver International Airport in British Columbia, Canada. The comparisons with measured data help in understanding the difference in results computed using the NORD2000 propagation code when real atmospheric data was considered to calculate a sound speed profile as compared to a vertically homogeneous sound speed profile. It is shown that an improvement in predicted levels is more likely if the meteorological conditions are considered.