Speaker
Description
During the last 20 years new in-situ methods have been developed for testing the acoustic properties of noise reducing devices (mainly noise barriers) under real-life condition (e.g. on-site, and not only in the laboratory). The main relevant properties are called sound reflexion and airborne sound insulation, and specific standards were developed by the European Committee for Standardisation CEN/TC 226/WG 6 and finally published with several updates during the last 5 years (e.g. EN 1793-5 and EN 1793-6 in der road sector and EN 16272-5 and EN 16272-6 in the railway sector). Nowadays these European standards are mainly used for type approval testing and certification of new and older products in the laboratory (mainly in the frame of the CE marking according to the standard EN 14388), for acoustic approval of newly built noise barriers on site and for long-term monitoring of installed noise barriers. The present paper discusses the current situation regarding the implementation of the standards mentioned before, highlighting the differences between European countries, mainly in Germany and Austria, with special focus on the acoustic approval and the long-term monitoring of noise barriers, both in the road and in the railway sector.