COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN OF HIGHWAY NOISE BARRIER

Abstract

Roadside noise concerns the quality of life, mainly in densely populated areas, in which high volumes of road traffic prevail. Road noise is a complex phenomenon mainly because of its human sensorial effects and thus has a non-deterministic component due to the fact that it is physically difficult to measure its intensity varies with the distance between the source and the receptor and with the environmental condition influencing noise propagation. The assessment and control of environmental impacts of road infrastructures is a relatively recent task for road designers, constructors and managers in view of the massive capacity augmentation of National Highway system in the country. Noise is one of the environmental pollutants that is encountered in daily life?. Noise pollution has become a major concern of communities living in the vicinity of major highway corridors in the country. There are several noise reduction methods. Noise barrier is one of the important methods to check the noise to reach to the receiver end. The noise barrier practice is common in USA and other European countries. As traffic noise is also increasing on the Indian roads, there is a need for the software, Which can design, noise barrier and can predict noise level as a consequence of barrier construction in the highway cross section. In the present studyr, an effort has been made to develop software NBDP (Noise Barrier Design and Prediction) in a Visual Programming Environment, The software is user friendly and is window based. User can easily interact with the software. A lot of functionality has been given in the software so that even a iii person, without comprehensive exposure to the technicality of noise barrier design can still use the software comfortably.