Speaker: Robin Woodward, principal consultant with Hayes McKenzie Partnership Ltd.
Wed 11th March 12:00 – 13:00 UK time. This seminar will be held in person in Newton 241 and online via Microsoft Teams.
Abstract
Wind turbine noise has been assessed for many years concentrating on two components contributing to annoyance, the broadband sound pressure level as the primary driver, with a correction where there is audible tonal content. In the past decade there has been an increasing awareness and concern regarding the effects of high levels of amplitude modulation related to the blade passage frequency of the turbines and the lower frequency content associated with this. Initially this was assessed by manually interrogating the peak to trough variation of the waveform, but it was quickly realised that a more automated method was required to analyse the large data-sets typically associated with investigations of noise complaints. Research was carried out into this and several methods were proposed including one by the UK Institute of Acoustics in 2016. This method has since been adopted internationally as part of an IEC Technical Specification on assessing wind turbine noise at receptor distances. This webinar will look at the phenomenon of amplitude modulation from wind turbines, discuss how analysis is carried out and, where future research might be needed to further refine the method to account for current and future technologies.
Biography
Robin Woodward is a principal consultant with Hayes McKenzie Partnership Ltd. He has a BSc Hons in Acoustical Engineering and Music from the University of Southampton and has been at the company for more than 15 years.
Robin has been assessing wind turbine noise throughout his career, working on over 1000 wind turbine projects. He serves on the British Standards and IEC committees responsible for the UK input to and maintenance of IEC 61400-11-1 and -2 which deal with sound power level determination and receptor distance analysis of wind turbine noise, where he heads up the expert groups on AM and Tonality, he is also chair of the Institute of Acoustics’ Meetings Committee.