Comparative Study of Indoor Human Response to Blast Noise and Sonic Booms

摘要

For the past two decades in the United States, blast sounds and sonic booms bothhave been assessed using C weighted day and night average sound level. Based almost exclusively on blast sound research, a new method which replaces the C weighted day and night average sound level recently has been recommended, reviewed, and incorporated into a new American National Standard. As in the previous method, the new method includes and assesses sonic boom sounds in a like manner to blast sounds. However, while available evidence suggested that in an indoor setting sonic boom could be treated in a similar fashion to blast sounds, experimental evidence was lacking. To provide the lacking comparison data, this study tested the responses of subjects to sonic booms to determine if they were consistent with the previous blast response data presented by Schomer in 1994, since these data formed the basis for the new method. A key factor in the design of this study was the presentation of real blasts and booms to subjects situated in real structures in the field. The new data resulting from this study show good general agreement with the previous data.