Assessment of Noise Exposure of Sawmill Workers in Southwest,Nigeria

Economic wood processing employs the use of industrial machines for cutting, shaping, milling, and sawing timber, thereby leading to the generation of high levels of noise. Published data from empirical studies have categorized noise as an environmental hazard of global significance. Furthermore, noise exposure limits for different industries and all the industrial machines available has not been formally established as it presently exists in developed nations around the world. Therefore, this study assessed the daily exposure of sawmills workers to noise in Southwestern Nigeria. Reconnaissance surveys were first carried out in Osun, Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti, Lagos, and Ogun States to select sawmills that were fully operational and fit for the study. Two fully functional sawmills in two cities of each State were eventually selected for data collection, making a total of 24 sawmills, while the Circular Machines (CM), Planer Machines (PM), and Band-saw Machines (BM) were the machines in each sawmill considered. Two machines each of CM, PM, and BM were considered in each sawmill, making a total of forty-eight (48) machines each of CM, PM, and BM. Sound data were collected between 7 am and 7 pm each day for six days (between Monday and Saturday) using Extech 407732 sound level meter and all stabilized measurements were taken three times at different intervals. The data collected were in three different periods: Machine No-work Period (NP_m), Machine Idle Period (IP_m), and Machine Working Period (WP_m). A two–way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was carried out at P < 0.05 to determine whether there is a significant difference in the sound level average before and after the break, for both the idle and working periods of the three machines considered. This was also done to determine whether there is a significant difference between the sound level average of the results collected during idle and working periods of the three machines. Noise Pollution Levels (L_np) ranged from 83.20 dB (PM) to 107.65 (BM) and 93.42 (CM and PM) – 116.00 (BM) respectively, while IP_m also gave the least noise pollution level of 95.79 dB and WP_m gave the highest level of 102.88 dB. The results revealed that all the machines’ L_np values in the working period are more than the 90 dB acceptable limit the recommendation value of 90 dB while 89.6% of CMs, 75% of PMs, and 89.6% of BM had their L_np above 90 dB in the idle period respectively. The minimum and the maximum noise dose levels for IP_m, WP_m and overall are 0.09 (BM) and 2.37 (CM), 0.50 (CM), and 4.77 (PM) and 0.69 (BM) and 6.64 (PM) respectively. The study found out that the fundamental contributing factors to the high noise levels in sawmills are poor machine maintenance, use of old and obsolete machines, poor housekeeping strategy, limited space, workers’ negligence, lack of PPE, and lack of occupational safety training. The study recommends that proper workplace practices such as use of personal protective equipment, new and modern machines, training, and occupational safety programmes be implemented in the considered sawmills.     

单面柱局域共振声子晶体低频带隙特性分析及结构改进研究

基于有限元法对单面柱局域共振声子晶体进行带隙特性分析,研究了结构参数对该类型声子晶体的影响。结果表明:随着散射体高度的增加,单面柱声子晶体的第一完全带隙的起始频率逐渐降低,带宽逐渐增大;随着基板厚度的增大,单面柱声子晶体的起始频率逐渐升高,截止频率先增大后减小。并且在经典单面柱声子晶体的基础上,组合了两种新型的三组元单面柱声子晶体结构:嵌入式单面柱声子晶体(以下简称结构Ⅰ)和粘接式单面柱声子晶体(以下简称结构Ⅱ)。通过对其带隙特性的分析得出:这两种新结构与经典的单面柱声子晶体相比,都具有更低频的带隙,这对于低频减振降噪是非常有利的。本文的结果将对实际的工程应用提供一定的理论指导。     

Optimization of Transducer Location for Novel Non-Intrusive Methodologies of Diagnosis in Diesel Engines

The health monitoring has been studied to ensure integrity of design of engine structure by detection, quantification, and prediction of damages. Early detection of faults may allow the downtime of maintenance to be rescheduled, thus preventing sudden shutdown of machines. In cylinder pressure developed, vibrations and noise emissions data provide a rich source of information about condition of engines. Monitoring of vibrations and noise emissions are novel non-intrusive methodologies for which positioning of various transducers are important issue. The presented work shows applicability of these diagnosis methodologies adopted in case of diesel engines. The effects of changing various fuel injection parameters was analyzed. Scope of using non-intrusive technique has been analyzed by changing locations of microphone. Novelty of this worklies in exploring signal processing methods for various locations around the engine test set up. Various frequency ranges of contributing noise and vibration sources were identified. Time-Frequency analysis showed the onset of various cyclic. Based on the identification of various frequency bands, it is possible to device suitable filters in order to extract more information.     

Hyperparameter on-line learning of stochastic resonance based threshold networks

Aiming at training the feed-forward threshold neural network consisting of nondifferentiable activation functions, the approach of noise injection forms a stochastic resonance based threshold network that can be optimized by various gradient-based optimizers. The introduction of injected noise extends the noise level into the parameter space of the designed threshold network, but leads to a highly non-convex optimization landscape of the loss function. Thus, the hyperparameter on-line learning procedure with respective to network weights and noise levels becomes of challenge. It is shown that the Adam optimizer, as an adaptive variant of stochastic gradient descent, manifests its superior learning ability in training the stochastic resonance based threshold network effectively. Experimental results demonstrate the significant improvement of performance of the designed threshold network trained by the Adam optimizer for function approximation and image classification.     

Reducing Occupational Noise Propagated from Centrifugal Fan through Dissipative Silencers: A Field Study

Acoustic performance of dissipative silencer was evaluated to determine the effectiveness of perforated duct porosity and absorbent material density in reducing occupational noise exposure propagated from centrifugal fan. Design charts were applied to predict noise reduction and length of a dissipative silencer. Dissipative silencers with various punched duct porosity (14%, 30% and 40%) and sound absorbent density (80 Kg/m³, 120 Kg/m³, and 140 Kg/m³) were designed and fabricated. According to ISO9612 and ISO11820, noise level was measured before and after installing all nine test silencers at fixed workstations around the discharge side of a centrifugal fan in a manufacturing plant. On average, the noise level at the discharge side of a fan without silencer was measured to be 93.6 dBA, whereas it was significantly mitigated by 67.4 dBA to 70.1 dBA after installing all silencers. Dynamic insertion loss for a dissipative silencer with 100 cm length was predicted to be 27.9 dB, which was in agreement with experimental ones. Although, there was no significant differences between insertion loss of silencers, the one with 30% porosity and 120 Kg/m³ rock wool density had the highest insertion loss of 26.2 dBA. Dissipative silencers noticeably reduced centrifugal fan noise exposures. Increasing sound absorbent density and duct porosity up to a certain limit could probably be effective in noise reduction of dissipative silencers.     

Vacuum-gap-based lumped element Josephson parametric amplifier

We propose a lumped element Josephson parametric amplifier with vacuum-gap-based capacitor.The capacitor is made of quasi-floating aluminum pad and on-chip ground.We take a fabrication process compatible with air-bridge technology,which makes our design adaptable for future on-chip integrated quantum computing system.Further engineering the input impedance,we obtain a gain above 20 dB over 162-MHz bandwidth,along with a quasi quantum-limit noise performance.This work should facilitate the development of quantum information processing and integrated superconducting circuit design.     

水下对转螺旋桨流致辐射噪声机理与预报方法*

水下对转螺旋桨流致辐射噪声的预报对于水下目标的特征提取和分类识别具有重要意义。由桨叶的旋转引起的湍流场是水下对转螺旋桨流致辐射噪声的源场。分述了水下对转螺旋桨湍流边界层脉动、旋转干涉效应和空化效应引发的水动力噪声机制和研究进展,比较了目前工程应用中的3种对转螺旋桨流致辐射噪声预报方法的特点。在分析对转螺旋桨流致辐射噪声数值预报难点的基础上,综述了对转螺旋桨流致辐射噪声计算方法的研究进展,指出间接数值模拟方法是工程中进行对转螺旋桨流致辐射噪声预报的有效方法。     

Frequencies Rotation at High Sound Pressure Levels Toward Low Frequencies

Today, analyzing of sound pressure level and frequency is considered as an important index in human society. Sound experts believe that analyzing of these parameters can help us to better understanding of work environments. Sound measurements and frequency analysis did to fix the harmful frequency in all sections in Shiraz gas power plant with sound analyzer model BSWA 308. The sound pressure levels (L_P) and the one and one-third octave band were continuously measured in A and C weighting networks and slow mode for time response. Excel 2013 and Minitab 18.1 software used for statistical calculations. Results analyzed by Minitab 18.1 software. The highest harmful frequency in Shiraz Gas Power Plant (SGPP) was 50 Hz with 115 dB. The sound pressure level (SPL) ranged from 45 dB to 120 dB in one-third octave band and weighting network C. The maximum sound pressure level was in Craft electricity generator with 105.3 dB and 67 Hz. Sound pressure level in surrounded environment was 120 dB. According to the results, in this industry the sound pressure level exceeded the Occupational Exposure Level of Iran (OEL). The value of sound pressure level were higher than the Standard of occupational health. SGPP consumes 47000 cubic meters of natural gas per hour to produce 100 MW (Mega Watt) of electricity. It is very high and it is not economical and cost effective. These numbers indicate that the power plant’s efficiency is low. It could be concluded that the noise pollution is an important issue in these industries. Moreover, SGPP produce noise with loss energy. Frequencies rotation at high sound pressure levels toward low frequencies were happened.     

柱面微通道板的制备及其性能研究

针对未来空间天文学应用的超分辨率光谱成像仪器的需求，对低噪声柱面微通道板（MCP）的制备方法及其性能进行了研究. 提出了一种将光学抛光与热成型相结合的新的柱面MCP制备方法，利用不含放射性元素的低噪声MCP玻璃，制备出曲率半径为400mm、尺寸为30mm′46mm、长径比为80:1、通道直径12.5mm、通道间距15mm的柱面MCP，并将其与感应电荷楔条形阳极（WSA）组成光子计数探测器，对其暗计数率、分辨率进行了检测，暗计数率约为0.1counts/cm2×s.