Airborne Sound Power Levels and Spectra of Noise Sources in Port Areas

Abstract

Airborne port noise has historically suffered from a lack of regulatory assessment compared to other transport infrastructures. This has led to several complaints from citizens living in the urban areas surrounding ports, which is a very common situation, especially in countries facing the Mediterranean sea. Only in relatively recent years has an effort been made to improve this situation, which has resulted in a call for and financing of numerous international cooperation research projects, within the framework of programs such as EU FP7, H2020, ENPI-CBC MED, LIFE, and INTERREG. These projects dealt with issues and aspects of port noise, which is an intrinsically tangled problem, since several authorities and companies operate within the borders of ports, and several different noise sources are present at the same time. In addition, ship classification societies have recently recognized the problem and nowadays are developing procedures and voluntary notations to assess the airborne noise emission from marine vessels. The present work summarizes the recent results of research regarding port noise sources in order to provide a comprehensive database of sources that can be easily used, for example, as an input to the noise mapping phase, and can subsequently prevent citizens' exposure to noise.

Keywords: noise exposure prevention; noise mapping; noise measurements; noise mitigations; noise modeling; noise sources; port noise; research projects; ship noise; sustainable management.

Figure 1

One-third octave sound power level spectra of a transtainer, as reported in [16]. L_W is expressed in dB for point sources, in dB/m for linear sources and in dB/m² for area sources.

Figure 2

One-third octave sound power level spectra of a transtainer, as reported in [17,18].

Figure 3

One-third octave sound power level spectra of a reach stacker, as reported in [16,17,18,36]. L_W is expressed in dB for point sources, in dB/m for linear sources and in dB/m² for area sources. RS-A-CA-RW-WH, RS-A-CA-SQ-WH and RS-P-STBY-WH data are taken from [16], RS-P-LIFT-WH, RS-P-PB-WH and RS-P-SG-WH from [18], RS-P-LIFT-WH (2) from [36].

Figure 4

One-third octave sound power level spectrum of a straddle carrier pass-by, as reported in [17]. L_W is expressed in dB/m for linear sources.

Figure 5

One-third octave sound power level spectra of gantry cranes, as reported in [16,17,18]. L_W is expressed in dB for point sources, in dB/m for linear sources and in dB/m² for area sources. GA-P-CA-WH and GA-P-LIFT-WH data are taken from [17,18], GC-A-CA-WH from [16].

Figure 6

Sound power level spectra of reefers, as defined by REPORT Project [16], EFFORT Project [18] and a report of the Danish Ministry of Environment [25]. L_W is expressed in dB for point sources, in dB/m for linear sources and in dB/m² for area sources.

Figure 7

One-third octave sound power spectra of Ro-Ro vessel noise sources, as reported in [17]. L_W is expressed in dB for point sources, in dB/m for linear sources and in dB/m² for area sources.

Figure 8

One-third octave sound power spectra of cruise ship funnel of three vessels, as reported in [20]. L_W is expressed in dB for point sources, in dB/m for linear sources and in dB/m² for area sources.

Figure 9

One-third octave sound power spectra of ventilation openings on the two sides of three vessels, as reported in [20]. L_W is expressed in dB for point sources, in dB/m for linear sources and in dB/m² for area sources.

Figure 10

One-third octave sound power spectra of cruise ships divided into big (70 to 90 ktons), medium (30 to 60 ktons) and small size (10 to 30 ktons), as reported in [24]. L_W is expressed in dB for point sources, in dB/m for linear sources and in dB/m² for area sources.

Figure 11

One-third octave sound power spectra of Ro-Ro ramps, as reported in deliverable 2.4.3 of [18]. L_W is expressed in dB for point sources.