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Outdoor Ambient Sound Levels
Outdoor ambient sound level (dBA) in rural and urban business and industrial environments with or without limited traffic
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In residential areas most noise comes from transportation, construction, industrial, and human and animal sources. Road traffic noise is the major source of noise.
The noise can be highly variable. It is common that Day-Night sound levels - Ldn - in different areas may vary a range of 50 dB. The outdoor level - Ldn - in a wilderness areas may occur as low as 30-40 dBA compared to 85-90 dBA in a urban areas. Most urban dwellers lives in areas of Ldn more than 48 dBA.
The table below indicates common outdoor sound pressure levels in rural and urban environments at different octave bands.
| Outdoor Sound Pressure (dBA) | |||||||||
| Conditions | Octave Band Center Frequency (Hz) | ||||||||
| 63 | 125 | 250 | 500 | 1000 | 2000 | 4000 | 8000 | ||
| Night-time | |||||||||
| Rural, no nearby traffic of concern | 42 | 37 | 32 | 27 | 22 | 18 | 14 | 12 | |
| Suburban, no nearby traffic of concern | 47 | 42 | 37 | 32 | 27 | 23 | 19 | 17 | |
| Urban, no nearby traffic of concern | 52 | 47 | 42 | 37 | 32 | 28 | 24 | 22 | |
| Business or commercial area | 57 | 52 | 47 | 42 | 37 | 33 | 29 | 27 | |
| Daytime | |||||||||
| Business or commercial area | 62 | 57 | 52 | 47 | 42 | 38 | 34 | 32 | |
| Industrial or manufacturing area | 67 | 62 | 57 | 52 | 47 | 43 | 39 | 37 | |
| Within 300 ft (91 m) of continuous heavy traffic | 72 | 67 | 62 | 57 | 52 | 48 | 44 | 42 | |
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Related Topics
- Acoustics - Room acoustics, acoustic properties - decibel A, B and C - Noise Rating (NR) curves, sound transmission, sound pressure, sound intensity, attenuation and more ..
- Noise and Attenuation - Noise is usually defined as unwanted sound - noise, noise generation, silencers and attenuation in HVAC systems
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Related Documents
- Acceptable Noise - dBA - Levels - Acceptable noise - dBA - levels at some locations
- Decibel - Decibel is a logarithmic unit used to describe the ratio of the signal level - power, sound pressure, voltage, intensity, etc.
- Ldn - Day and Night Sound Level - The EPA has defined an A-weighted sound level day and night equivalent for a 24 hour period
- Propagation of Sound Outdoors - Outdoor propagation of sound - distance and attenuation
- Propagation of Sound Outdoors and Partial Barriers - The transmission of sound through and around outdoor barriers - Fresnel Number
- SIL - Speech Interference Levels - Approximate speech interference levels
- Sound Power - Sound Power Level and the Sound Power from some common sources as fans, jet engines, cars, humans and more ..
