PhD on assessment and modelling of noise annoyance of current and future aircraft

Aircraft noise is a cause of annoyance and severe adverse health effects to millions of people living in the vicinity of airports. In addition, noise emissions remain the biggest inhibitor to aviation growth, since strict noise regulations limit the capacity of airports. The continuous growth of air traffic, only worsens this situation and brings urgency to this matter.

One of the crucial remaining challenges in order to protect the quality of life and living environment around airports is to perform accurate assessment and modelling of the noise annoyance caused by aviation. Conventional sound metrics typically employed for by authorities for noise assessment do not properly consider human perception of sound and, as such, it is highly questionable to use them to assess noise annoyance. In contrast, novel sound quality metrics from the psychoacoustics field are expected to be more suitable for this purpose.

This PhD project will focus on the development of novel perception-based assessment techniques and modelling of aircraft noise annoyance. The PhD researcher will benefit from the extensive in-house expertise in the field. To perform the necessary experiments, the PhD researcher will be able to use the state-of-the-art equipment present at the research group, such as microphone arrays for acoustic measurements and the newly-developed psychoacoustic listening room.

The main objectives of this PhD project are to:

• Determine the main sound characteristics of aircraft noise that influence the perceived annoyance via listening experiments.
• Develop semi-empirical noise annoyance prediction models for current aircraft (turbofan and turboprop), as well as for near-future aviation concepts (unconventional aircraft configurations, drones, urban air mobility vehicles).

Based on experiments in wind tunnels (and potentially full-scale aircraft flyover measurements), assess how innovative aircraft technologies (such as those designed to reduce fuel burn and pollutant emissions) would affect the noise annoyance experienced around airports.