Urban noise: effects on human health and regulation framework; overview of rules for measuring the noise level on building façade and simulation about influence of receivers position.

Urban noise: effects on human health and regulation framework; overview of rules for measuring the noise level on building façade and simulation about influence of receivers position. Noise pollution generated by the urban traffic, nearby commercial or people leisure activities, afflicts many of our cities and its effects are not limited to a generic disturbance of the peace in residential areas. The thesis investigates this problem by examining some of its aspects, as the effect of noise pollution on human health, the applicable noise regulations, how the building façades can contribute to reduce this phenomenon, the rules given by the standards to carry out measurements on façades, concluding with a simulation about their application. The impact of noise on human health is briefly described taking into account the direct effect on the auditory system with other non-auditory effects such as sleep disturbance, cardiovascular and physiological effects, and so on. The public authorities try to manage this problem by issuing regulations and laws on the environmental noise and this complex panorama has been summarized starting from the European Environmental Noise Directive up to national, regional and local regulations, with a focus on the municipality of Turin. The framework of the regulations is examined with specific focus on the aspects related to noise mitigation policies that may affect the development of urban areas In city areas the noise pollution effects are worsened by the so-called “street canyon” where continuous building fronts along narrow streets reflect the sound multiple times, increasing the sound pressure level and where building façade covers an important role. The contribution of the façade is recently studied to limit the sound reflection and what are the possible interventions on its elements and material have been overviewed, together with the rules suggested by the standards how to perform the measurements reducing potential errors. An overview of the investigations and simulations done by different researchers about both previous issues has been carried out, focusing on measurement of the noise in façade. The simulation done with ODEON tool applied to a 3D model of an existing building studies the effect on SPL measurement by varying the position of the reference microphone from the façade. The simulation was repeated with different configurations of the façade to evaluate their effect on measurements. The results show in some case acceptable correspondence with the ISO 1996-2 and in other sensible variations; therefore, it is highlighted that the effective position of the microphone can deeply affect the final measurement even respecting the applicable standard. Consequently, it is necessary to pay attention do not commit errors for evaluating the SPL that is used to define the respect of imposed limit of the regulations.