Philéas MAIGROT : Annoyance due to noise and vibration from railway traffic in cities

From November 1, 2015 to October 31, 2018
Date of thesis defence:23 July 2019

Laboratories : LVA (INSA Lyon) et LGCB (ENTPE)
Thesis supervisors: C. Marquis-Favre et E.Parizet

Abstract :
Vibrations due to railway traffic (e.g. tramway, train) propagate from the tracks to inside neighbour houses. Often, these phenomena are associated with the vehicle pass-by noise. This co-exposition to noise and vibration is a source of annoyance, as well as of some health issues.
Few studies have been conducted to investigate this co-exposition in terms of annoyance. They use indices which only describe an amount of energy for each separate exposition. Results can be contradictory. These contradictions could be due to differences in the level or frequency content in the noise or vibration signals used in the experiments. The state of the art shows that more experiments should be conducted in order to bring to light all perceptual phenomena related to annoyance.
The goal of the thesis is to improve the knowledge of the perceptual phenomena involved in a combined noise and vibration exposure. Intensity evaluation will be studied first. In a second time, the influence of non energetic parameters such as frequency content or modulation on annoyance will be investigated through more experiments.