Prediction of wind turbine noise propagation

In order to meet the US Department of Energy's projected target of 35% of the US energy coming from wind by 2035, there is a strong need to look into the management and development of wind turbine technology and its impacts on human health, wild life, and the environment. The prediction of wind turbine noise and its propagation is very critical to study the impacts of wind turbine noise for long-term adoption and acceptance by neighboring communities. This article presents a study on the prediction of wind turbine noise propagation using an open access software and the publicly available topological map of projected sites. The noise propagation prediction utilized Openwind, a software package used for wind project design and optimization, to generate a noise map based on inputs acquired from a potential wind energy demonstration site. The predicted noise maps were incorporated with the measured ambient noise data to predict the resultant noise level in the surrounding neighborhood under different scenarios.