A comparative study on design optimization of polygonal and Bézier Curve-Shaped thin noise barriers using dual BEM formulation

Abstract

The inclusion of sound barriers for abating road traffic noise is a broadly used strategy that is often constrained by the requirements associated with its effective height. Due to this fact, the searching process has to deal with compromise solutions between the effective height and the acoustic efficiency of the barrier, assessed by the insertion loss (IL) in this paper. Two different barrier designs are studied herein for two different receivers configurations and for three clearly distinguishable regions in terms of closeness to the barrier. These models are based on the optimization of the IL of thin-cross section profiles proposed by an Evolutionary Algorithm. The special nature of these sorts of barriers makes necessary the implementation of a dual BEM formulation in the optimization process. Results obtained show the usefulness of representing complex thin-cross section barrier configurations as null boundary thickness-like models.