Waar wij trots op zijn - Ontdekker van het jaar - Universiteit Leiden

English summary
Human activities have impact on the environment and on human
health. To calculate this impact, environmental scientists apply
the ‘life cycle analysis’. For the life cycle of a product - raw
material extraction, manufacturing, transportation, use
and disposal – they assess the quantities of materials and energy
consumed and released and determine how these affect environment
and human health. Until now, noise was missing in these
analyzes, although exposure to noise may cause serious illness.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO),
which sets guidelines for lifecycle analyzes, stated that this
problem should be addressed, and Stefano Cucurachi successfully
developed a framework to incorporate noise in life cycle analyses.
In any life cycle it is possible to quantify, for any of the
relevant involved processes, a sound emission in the
form of sound energy (1 in the figure). At each specific
location, frequency and place sound emissions may
be summed and a quantity in joule (J) is obtained
(2). Only a part of the sound emitted by a source
reaches the target. The physical mechanisms behind
the propagation of sound are usually complex and
non-linear. These were taken into consideration and
developed in an impact assessment model. A noisedose
was quantified using a sound propagation and
attenuation model (3). To evaluate the effect of noise
on humans, sensitivity to noise, population levels and
other parameters were considered (4). The combination
of a noise-dose and a noise-effect define a characterisation
factor for noise (5). The impact of noise on
humans is finally quantified by multiplying the sound
emissions at each specific location, frequency and time
by the relative characterisation factor (6).
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