Protecting Crew Members Against Military Vehicle Noise

摘要

Military vehicles can be extremely noisy working environments. Noise impairs vehicle crews in various ways, for instance through its effect on speech intelligibility and the audibility of other useful sounds. Exposure to high noise levels may, in the long run, also cause an irreversible hearing loss. An overview of interior noise levels in different types of military vehicles and aircraft shows that (extremely) high noise levels are prolific throughout the armed forces of NATO. Current developments in the field of personal hearing protection technology will contribute to limit the effects of noise on crews, the long term effects (hearing loss) as well as the immediate effects (such as the effect on speech intelligibility).