Industrial Noise
- Melinda Miller, Principal Engineer
- Peter Allen, Senior Acoustical Engineer
Microchip has a large steam boiler that would occasionally experience a resonant condition that generated a loud, low-frequency tone. The tone was loud enough to significantly exceed the local ordinance at the property line of the facility. While they had some success with their own adjustments, the symptoms always returned. However, they could not identify the specific conditions that would trigger the resonant condition, making it difficult to diagnose the root cause of the problem.
ABD Engineering & Design worked with Microchip to perform long-term exterior noise measurements to capture sound data at the property line to quantify the exceedance when the resonant condition occurred. ABD utilized a meter with built-in notifications to alert when the noise reached a determined threshold.
At the conclusion of the study, ABD was able to recommend a noise mitigation strategy that reduced the noise to comply with the ordinance while meeting the equipment manufacturer’s operating requirements.
