Citation

Mlynski R, Kozlowski E. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019; 16(13): e16132266.

Affiliation

Department of Vibroacoustic Hazards, Central Institute for Labour Protection-National Research Institute, Czerniakowska 16, 00-701 Warsaw, Poland. emkoz@ciop.pl.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph16132266

PMID

31252535

Abstract

The high sound pressure level generated by impulse noise produced in an indoor shooting range makes it necessary to protect the hearing of the people it affects. Due to the need for verbal communication during training at a shooting range, level-dependent hearing protectors are useful. The objective of this study was to answer the question of whether it is possible to properly protect the hearing of a shooting instructor using level-dependent hearing protectors. The noise parameters were measured in the places where the instructor was present at the shooting range. The division of a specific group of trained shooters into subgroups consisting of three or six simultaneously shooting individuals did not significantly affect the exposure of the shooting instructor to the noise. An assessment of noise reduction was carried out for eight models of earmuffs and two variants of earplugs, using computational methods for the selection of hearing protectors. Among the noise parameters, both the A-weighted equivalent sound pressure level and the C-weighted peak sound pressure level were taken into account. Depending on the assessment criterion adopted, a sufficient reduction in impulse noise was provided by either four or six out of the 10 hearing protectors included in the study.

Language: en

Keywords

hearing protectors; impulse noise; level-dependent earmuffs; level-dependent earplugs; noise measurement; occupational exposure; sound pressure level