Applications for CEL instruments
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Applications for CEL instruments |
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Key Applications for CEL monitoring equipment |
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| Workplace noise measurements | |
| The assessment of high noise levels in the workplace is a topic that requires careful measurements. Workplace noise assessments for health and safety purposes should be part of all manufacturing company's industrial hygiene program for obvious reasons. Estimates suggest that as many as 40 million workers in the US are subjected to potentially harmful noise exposure in their workplace. Simple sound level measurements are needed to give a clear understanding of the likely risks involved before damage to worker's hearing takes place or gets worse. Personal noise dosimetry to measure individual noise exposure is a preferred method to assess the exposure that an individual receives during the day at work. Once the results of noise exposure studies or surveys have been made the industrial hygienist can move forward and develop a suitable hearing conservation program to tackle the problems. This may involve reducing noise at source or as an interim measure to protect the work force while remedial action is planned and implemented. Choosing hearing protectors may need to be undertaken in an approved manner. Once a worker's hearing is lost it cannot be recovered. |
 typical sources of noise in the workplace |
| Environmental noise measurements | |
| Not only are we concerned about noise levels at work but we want our home environment to be quiet too. Environmental noise assessments for measurements outdoors require different sets of measurements than those in the workplace. Short term noise measurements to carry out simple investigations can be done with modern sound level meters using hand held instruments. Longer surveys for whole days or even weeks may be necessary to correctly categorize noise in the community to be certain of the prevailing conditions where we live. A prime cause of noise in the community is from traffic and vehicles on the roads. Highways can be a concern if care is not taken to mitigate problems along the route of a new road. Aircraft and airports require long term unattended noise measurements for more detailed studies before additional air traffic movements may be allowed at busy locations. |
 traffic noise in the environment |
| Product noise measurements | |
| Everybody wants to live in a pleasant environment and the pieces of equipment that we bring into our own homes must be quiet enough so that they do not cause nuisance. Product noise assessments to satisfy the more recent labeling requirements are needed by more and more consumers because of international regulations and the desire to protect workers in already dangerous factories. There is no point in carrying out extensive, and expensive, workplace noise surveys if any new piece of equipment that is introduced into a factory is just as noisy as the one it is meant to replace. Designers of modern machines are always striving to make their products quieter since we often associate "quality" with quietness. |
 making measurements around a piece of machinery |
| Room acoustic measurements | |
| The right acoustic conditions must be present in the spaces that are used for cinemas, theaters, school classrooms, conference rooms and other noise sensitive enclosed spaces. Building acoustics measurements for factories, cinemas or enclosed spaces are often necessary to control the "echo" in a room. Too much echo and the sounds will be muddied and confused. Too little echo or reverberation and the room will sound "dead". These characteristics can be measured and the correct treatments can be recommended if key parameters such as the reverberation time and transmission loss are obtained from the modern noise analyzer. |
 measuring the reverberation time in a theater |
| Sound quality measurements | |
| How loud is loud? How acceptable is this noise? How good is the quality of one sound source compared to another? In the past the answers to these questions were often left to "experts" in their field with years of experience at listening with a super critical ear to the noise of a vehicle ride on an uneven road surface. Sound quality measurements using the "Loudness" measurement and expressing results in sones and phons give the sound engineer a new metric to use to quantify what is good and what is bad without having to rely on an experienced tester who may have a "bad" day from time to time and not be able to make an objective judgment due to a head cold or the effects of the "day after the night before". |
 sound quality in new vehicles |
| this page last updated : Monday January 14, 2008 |