Design and Instrumentation of a Large Reverberation Chamber

Details

• Personal Author:
  Bartholomae, Roy C. ; Peterson, Jeffrey S.
• Description:
  In the early 1980s, the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Mines Pittsburgh Research Center required that a large reverberation acoustic facility be constructed. This facility was designed to determine the sound power level emissions of mining equipment, especially continuous miners and jumbo drills. A contract for a conceptual design of a reverberation chamber was awarded to Wyle Laboratories of Huntsville, Alabama, which had extensive experience in the design, construction, and accreditation of acoustical reverberation chambers. The following standards were referenced as guidelines for the design of the chamber: ANSI S1.31-1980, "Precision Methods for the Determination of Sound Power Levels of Broadband Noise Sources in Reverberation Rooms" and ANSI S1.32-1980, "Precision Methods for the Determination of Sound Power Levels of Discrete-Frequency and Narrowband Noise Sources in Reverberation Rooms." Specific requested criteria included that the room be large enough to accommodate typically large mining equipment and that there be adequate acoustical model density in the frequency range of interest. It was also required that the room dimensions would support broadband acoustical measurements down to the 100-Hz third-octave band. With the closing of the Bureau of Mines in 1995, this reverberation chamber lay dormant for a number of years. However, this facility is now part of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health's (NIOSH) Pittsburgh Research Laboratory (PRL). One of NIOSH's missions is to decrease noise-induced hearing loss among the Nation's mineworkers. To this end, PRL researchers are refurbishing and instrumenting this reverberation chamber to facilitate assessment of the various engineering controls being developed to decrease the sound power level emissions of mining equipment. Early on, this work has sought to bring the chamber up to the level of ISO 3743-2 standard for engineering grade measurements for broadband noise, with a longer range goal of improving the lab to meet the requirements of ISO 3741 standards for broadband precision-grade measurements. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Acoustics Laboratories Mining Noise Noise, Occupational Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Acoustical-measurements Laboratory-testing Mining-equipment Noise-levels Noise-measurement Noise-sources
• Series:
  Mining Publications
• Publisher:
  Institute of Noise Control Engineering of the USA
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Proceedings
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 3 ; Pennsylvania
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  PRL - Pittsburgh Research Laboratory
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-8
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20023410
• Citation:
  NOISE-CON 2003: Proceedings of the 2003 National Conference on Noise Control Engineering, Cleveland, Ohio, June 23-25, 2003. Holger DK, Maling Jr. GC, eds., Ames, IA: Institute of Noise Control Engineering of the USA, 2003 Jun; :1-8
• Editor(s):
  Holger DK; Maling GC Jr.
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2003
• NORA Priority Area:
  Research Tools and Approaches: Control Technology and Personal Protective Equipment
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:3f23d358ef1a62af2aa3b30e7b849c62932da4b2354d531e8941aee45b3602d689d2a6ee9a2dcb27282629caa2ae8848157a00d7cd2cd996c58cd1d56ddd9af8
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/220676/cdc_220676_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 799.06 KB ]