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Measurement, Simulation and Design of Sound in Urban Spaces
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Measurement, Simulation and Design of Sound in Urban Spaces

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Acoustics and Vibrations".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 July 2024) | Viewed by 9583

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Massimo Garai

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Guest Editor
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy
Interests: environmental acoustics; environmental sustainability; metamaterials; architectural acoustics; building acoustics; digital signal processing; machine learning
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Gioia Fusaro

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy
Interests: environmental acoustics; environmental sustainability; acoustic metamaterials; building acoustics; soundscape; psychoacoustics; ergonomics; social sciences
Prof. Dr. Georgios E. Stavroulakis

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Production Engineering and Management, Technical University of Crete, University Campus, 73100 Chania, Greece
Interests: computational mechanics; optimal design and parameter identification; applied artificial intelligence
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Nikolaos M. Papadakis

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Guest Editor
Institute of Computational Mechanics & Optimization (Co.Mec.O), Department of Production Engineering and Management, Technical University of Crete, GR-73100 Chania, Greece
Interests: architectural acoustics; computational acoustics; acoustic measurements; acoustic sources; finite element method; impulse response; acoustic parameters; sound quality; psychoacoustics; soundscape
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

From measures for protection against noise pollution to the optimisation of environmental comfort for specific outdoor/indoor functions, the acoustics of urban spaces has been demonstrated to have a great impact on human life. In recent years, scientific and public communities increased their awareness of perceived sound sources, and governments started to establish more accurate regulations. The latest physical limits, holistic indices, and techniques include, for example, decibels (dB, which helps to measure the intensity of sounds and predict noise annoyance thresholds), psychoacoustic descriptors (which helps describe sound sources in their characteristic spectra), soundscape descriptors (which help to include human perception in the environmental sound evaluation), and artificial intelligence (AI) for decoding and gathering more specific information during monitoring phases. The sound quality in urban spaces is not only a matter of physical limits; it is also key to human physical and psychological wellbeing, which makes it a challenge for the latest data analysis techniques. This Special Issue aims to gather major publications on projects and achievements which, from theoretical and practical perspectives, make innovative proposals regarding the Measurement, Simulation and Design of Sound in Urban Spaces. The scope relates to the contemporary field of environmental sound and soundscape research, but we are also interested in proposals on the monitoring and design of outdoor public spaces. The urban environment needs to be analysed according to both quantitative and qualitative parameters. The proposed papers should highlight their holistic approaches (physical sciences, machine learning, engineering sciences, building sciences, human and social sciences). Particular attention will be given to papers that show how urban spaces are constructed and drawn by psychoacoustics and soundscapes, but also how environmental sounds are produced and shaped by urban spaces. Finally, this Special Issue also aims to gather articles in different cultural and geographical contexts (on the five continents), at building, district, city and/or megalopolis scale.

Prof. Dr. Massimo Garai
Dr. Gioia Fusaro
Prof. Dr. Georgios E. Stavroulakis
Dr. Nikolaos M. Papadakis
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • noise control
  • noise monitoring systems
  • soundscape
  • quiet areas
  • data analysis
  • big data
  • machine learning, environmental acoustics
  • computational acoustics
  • smart noise barriers (including but not limited to metamaterials)

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

11 pages, 3873 KiB  
Article
Sonic Crystal Noise Barrier with Resonant Cavities for Train Brake Noise Mitigation
by David Ramírez-Solana, Jaime Galiana-Nieves, Rubén Picó, Javier Redondo, Valentino Sangiorgio, Angelo Vito Graziano and Nicola Parisi
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14(7), 2753; https://doi.org/10.3390/app14072753 - 25 Mar 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1019
Abstract
In an experimental investigation, the development of sonic crystal noise barriers (SCNBs) is undertaken to address the issue of train brake noise (TBN), focusing on the use of local resonances in scatterers of sonic crystals. Recent research has shown that the inclusion of [...] Read more.
In an experimental investigation, the development of sonic crystal noise barriers (SCNBs) is undertaken to address the issue of train brake noise (TBN), focusing on the use of local resonances in scatterers of sonic crystals. Recent research has shown that the inclusion of cavity resonators in the crystal scatterers allows for the modification of their insulating properties. In those works, it has been demonstrated that this interaction can be used to build highly insulating structures. The study proposes an SCNB design that includes a resonant cavity specifically to mitigate TBN and validates this design through experimental measures. The experiments confirm the enhanced sound insulation capabilities of SCNBs, compare them to the conventional noise barriers ones and demonstrate the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed design in real-world scenarios. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Measurement, Simulation and Design of Sound in Urban Spaces)
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18 pages, 7347 KiB  
Article
Acoustic Requalification of an Urban Evolving Site and Design of a Noise Barrier: A Case Study at the Bologna Engineering School
by Gioia Fusaro and Massimo Garai
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14(5), 1837; https://doi.org/10.3390/app14051837 - 23 Feb 2024
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1283
Abstract
The increase in new infrastructure development has raised closer attention to the environmental noise of new expansion areas. This study investigates the urban evolution of Terracini Street’s surrounding area in the Navile district, Bologna, Italy. In the last 20 years, this area has [...] Read more.
The increase in new infrastructure development has raised closer attention to the environmental noise of new expansion areas. This study investigates the urban evolution of Terracini Street’s surrounding area in the Navile district, Bologna, Italy. In the last 20 years, this area has undergone various transformations, from a suburban industrial area to a new university and residential one. First, the morphologic and infrastructural characteristics of the site are established. Then, the existing regulations (acoustic, urban, and infrastructural regulations, whether local or national) are evaluated. Next, the results of environmental noise measurements are presented. Since a heavily trafficked infrastructure is very close to the occupied public area, noise limits are severely exceeded. A noise mitigation design stage follows, focusing on a novel noise barrier design. Specifically, particular attention is paid to the visual and ecological impact of the noise barrier on the area’s landscape, which must be representative of the new location of the School of Engineering. The sonic crystal technique is exploited to implement an effective noise barrier (average insertion loss of 10 dB(A) in the 200 Hz–1 kHz range), allowing air ventilation and visual transparency. This case study could further evolve using other acoustic metamaterial techniques or in different application sites. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Measurement, Simulation and Design of Sound in Urban Spaces)
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19 pages, 2256 KiB  
Article
NoisenseDB: An Urban Sound Event Database to Develop Neural Classification Systems for Noise-Monitoring Applications
by Itxasne Diez, Ibon Saratxaga, Unai Salegi, Eva Navas and Inma Hernaez
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(16), 9358; https://doi.org/10.3390/app13169358 - 17 Aug 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1341
Abstract
The use of continuous monitoring systems to control aspects such as noise pollution has grown in recent years. The commercial monitoring systems used to date only provide information on noise levels but do not identify the noise sources that generate them. The identification [...] Read more.
The use of continuous monitoring systems to control aspects such as noise pollution has grown in recent years. The commercial monitoring systems used to date only provide information on noise levels but do not identify the noise sources that generate them. The identification of noise sources is an important aspect in order to apply corrective measures to mitigate the noise levels. In this sense, new technological advances like machine listening can enable the addition of other capabilities to sound monitoring systems such as the detection and classification of noise sources. Despite the increasing development of these systems, researchers have to face some shortcomings. The most frequent ones are on the one hand, the lack of data recorded in real environments and on the other hand, the need for automatic labelling of large volumes of data collected by working monitoring systems. In order to address these needs, in this paper, we present our own sound database recorded in an urban environment. Some baseline results for the database are provided using two original convolutional neural network based sound events classification systems. Additionally, a state of the art transformer-based audio classification system (AST) has been applied to obtain some baseline results. Furthermore, the database has been used for evaluating a semi-supervised strategy to train a classifier for automatic labelling that can be refined by human labellers afterwards. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Measurement, Simulation and Design of Sound in Urban Spaces)
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26 pages, 3145 KiB  
Article
City Ditty: An Immersive Soundscape Sketchpad for Professionals of the Built Environment
by Richard Yanaky, Darcy Tyler and Catherine Guastavino
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(3), 1611; https://doi.org/10.3390/app13031611 - 27 Jan 2023
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2578
Abstract
Soundscape planning remains a challenge to many urban practitioners due in part to a scarcity of soundscape design tools. While many sound planning tools exist, they are generally geared towards acousticians rather than professionals of the built environment (e.g., urban designers, planners, or [...] Read more.
Soundscape planning remains a challenge to many urban practitioners due in part to a scarcity of soundscape design tools. While many sound planning tools exist, they are generally geared towards acousticians rather than professionals of the built environment (e.g., urban designers, planners, or landscape architects). This paper walks through the user-centered design process for the development and evaluation of a new soundscape design tool, City Ditty. A User-Centered Design approach was utilized to identify and develop functionalities that would benefit urban practitioners that do not currently specialize in sound. This began with a literature review of existing soundscape tools, followed by a user needs assessment with professionals of the built environment, consisting of a workshop including focus groups, tech demos, and a collaborative soundscape design exercise. These results funneled into the development of City Ditty: an immersive soundscape sketchpad that facilitates rapid audio-visual prototyping of urban soundscapes. To make City Ditty accessible to users with no expertise in sound, we developed a sound awareness session that walks the user through 36 tasks. These hands-on tasks illustrate soundscape design principles while serving as instructions on how to use the many functions of City Ditty, e.g., listen to the city soundscape at different times of the day, pedestrianize the city centre, modify permissible construction times, and add birdfeeders to attract sounds of nature. A usability study was conducted with six participants to evaluate the tool using Desktop Virtual Reality, determine new functionalities, and determine how to best facilitate user engagement in order to encourage adoption by practitioners. The direction of future soundscape tools is discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Measurement, Simulation and Design of Sound in Urban Spaces)
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14 pages, 4265 KiB  
Article
Stabilization Time of Running Equivalent Level LAeq for Urban Road Traffic Noise
by Giovanni Brambilla, Roberto Benocci, Andrea Potenza and Giovanni Zambon
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(1), 207; https://doi.org/10.3390/app13010207 - 24 Dec 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 1785
Abstract
In urban areas, noise levels can largely vary in space and time due to the great complexity of these environments. The time required for the fluctuations of the running equivalent level LAeq to be limited within a preset variability range is a [...] Read more.
In urban areas, noise levels can largely vary in space and time due to the great complexity of these environments. The time required for the fluctuations of the running equivalent level LAeq to be limited within a preset variability range is a key issue for determining a statistically representative sample of the urban acoustic environment. The goal of the present study is to evaluate the potential of the stabilization time, defined as the minimum time ST after which the difference between the corresponding continuous equivalent sound pressure level LAeq,ST and the continuous equivalent sound pressure level LAeq,T referred a longer time T, including ST, is never greater than a preset uncertainty interval ε. For this purpose, a dataset of road traffic noise continuously monitored in 97 sites in the city of Milan, Italy, is considered, providing 268 time series of 1 s short LAeq,1s, each lasting 24 h. The stabilization time ST referred the hourly LAeq,1h was determined for three preset uncertainty intervals ε, namely ±0.5, ±1.0 and ±1.5 dB(A). The results are promising and provide useful hints to obtain short-time noise monitoring as a statistically representative sample of the urban acoustic environment and, therefore, can be a tool to increase the low spatial resolution usually achievable by unattended permanent monitoring units. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Measurement, Simulation and Design of Sound in Urban Spaces)
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