A model predicting discomfort caused by combined noise and vibration

The discomfort caused by combined noise and vibration may be different from the sum of the discomfort caused by noise and the discomfort caused by vibration when they are presented separately. This experimental study investigated how judgements of discomfort caused by simultaneous noise and vibration depend on the level of noise and the magnitude of vibration. Twenty-four subjects used absolute magnitude estimation to report their discomfort caused by seven levels of noise (70 to 88 dBA SEL), seven magnitudes of vibration (0.146 to 2.318 ms-1.75), and all 49 possible combinations of noise and vibration. A root-sums-of-squares model was proposed to predict the discomfort of combined noise and vibration from the magnitude estimates of discomfort caused by the noise and the vibration when they are presented separately.