An Application of a New Roadside Barrier to Traffic Noise Mitigation

Abstract

In this paper, the noise reduction performance of a new roadside barrier, which is called double screen barrier, is presented and studied theoretically and experimentally. The theoretical predictions are developed and based on Macdonald's diffraction theory. A case study of traffic noise mitigation is presented to show the effectiveness of the different barriers, including vertical barrier, cantilever barrier, double screen barrier, and partial enclosure. It has been found that the double screen barrier gives the best noise reduction performance among the four mitigation measures. A 1: 4 scale model of the proposed double screen barrier has been developed. The experimental results have good agreements with the predictions, provided that absorption material must be fully filled into the trough of the V-shape panel of the double screen barrier to reduce the sound reflection, and the gap width between the V-shape panel edges must be large when compared with the wavelengths of frequencies of interest.