Sound level forecasting for city-centers. Part 1: sound level due to a road within an urban canyon

The computer simulation program PROP5 for prediction of the time-average sound level within an urban system has been exploited. The program contains the equivalent road model and the propagation model. A roadway modeled as a sum of individual vehicles drives-by previously investigated has been applied. The multi-lane roadway and different representations of sources for various classes of vehicles are allowed. During propagation, a wave interacting with obstacles undergoes multi-reflections from their walls and single and double diffraction at their wedges. In the paper, the PROP5 program is used to calculate sound level distribution in an urban system forming a canyon. The different degrees of accuracy in the urban canyon modeling have been tested.