Digital sampling of acoustic impulse noise: Implications for exposure measurement and damage risk criteria

Christoper J. Smalt*, Douglas S. Brungart

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Current standards for the measurement of impulse noise (e.g., MIL-STD-1474E) recommend using a sampling rate of at least 200 kHz in order to accurately estimate the risk of hearing damage. The given motivation for this high sampling rate is to ensure a temporal resolution in the impulse waveform fine enough to accurately capture the peak pressure. However, the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem specifies that a sampled signal can accurately reconstruct both the amplitude and phase information of a signal given the sampling rate is at least twice the highest frequency present in the original signal. Thus, it is possible to reconstruct a band limited signal with the same temporal resolution as one captured at a higher sampling rate if the contributions of energy above the Nyquist rate can be ignored. In this study, resampling techniques are applied to a signal sampled at 48 kHz to extract A-weighted sound pressure energy estimates within 0.1 dB of those obtained at a higher sampling rate. Our results suggest sampling rates for impulsive noise should be based on the range of frequencies expected to make a contribution to injury risk rather than on concerns about temporal resolution.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1283-1291
Number of pages9
JournalJournal of the Acoustical Society of America
Volume152
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Sep 2022
Externally publishedYes

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