Project 7: Inversion modeling method applied to a large Gas production plant (1998)

In 1998, the French company PZ (Phillippe Zuliani) contacted ICR to carry out an acoustic study of the AGA PRAXAIR gas production plant in Toulouse (Portet sur Garonne), one of the world’s largest distributors of industrial gases, to propose acoustic solutions in order to comply with the current legislation regarding noise and vibrations.

 

Previously, SCP Acoustique undertook a noise survey to assess the sound levels received in the vicinity of the industry, obtaining values above the limits established by the local regulations.

 

ICR main goal was to reduce the overall noise levels at the neighboring residences by providing solutions to mitigate the noisiest sound sources located in the company facilities in a selective way. To achieve this, the inversion modeling method was applied (as it was done previously with Ferrari ( https://bit.ly/2R4nFQL ) ) to obtain the acoustic power of each sound source involved, thanks to various proximity sound pressure measurements. The adaptation of the method to this type of acoustic problem allowed ICR to determine the acoustic power of each existing sound source in the industry, and also to calculate its contribution to each point of the resulting sound field. Even maintaining all sources operating simultaneously and at full capacity.

 

After all this process, it was possible to create an ordered list of sound sources, from the loudest to the quietest, allowing us to prioritize which sources were to be treated and what kind of treatment was needed in order to achieve our goal, in an optimal way.

 

The knowledge acquired in this project was published in the scientific journal Applied Acoustics: O. Guasch, F.X. Magrans & P.V. Rodriguez. An inversion modeling method to obtain the acoustic power of the noise sources in a large factory. Applied Acoustics 63, pp. 401-417 (2002).