Acoustical Noise Study of a Factory: Indoor and Outdoor Simulations Integration Procedure

Industrial settlements are often source of disturbance for the surrounding area. In particular, from an acoustical point of view, the noise emitted by machineries operating in the production line and/or in the logistic activities, is a relevant pollutant to be considered in the environmental impact assessment. For this reason, the field measurement approach is usually preferred, to properly evaluate the noise levels in general conditions. The aid of predictive software may be particularly useful when it is difficult to perform a long term measurement campaign. In this paper, the combination of indoor and outdoor simulations will be presented on a case study in south Italy. The indoor modelling of the sources will help on one hand to understand the acoustic climate of the working environment, on the other hand to assess the overall outdoor noise emission of the factory. The values obtained with the indoor simulation, in fact, will be used to tune the “equivalent source” that simulate the factory emissions. An outdoor noise map will be drawn, in order to assess the impact on the surrounding buildings. Both the indoor and outdoor simulations are tuned with experimental field measurements and compared with results on fixed measurement points