The study was performed by Brenna Boyd, an undergraduate research assistant working under Lily Wang, a professor in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Durham School of Architectural Engineering & Construction. Boyd will present her findings at the 170th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), being held Nov. 2-6, 2015, in Jacksonville, Fla.
According to Boyd, her interest in the project stemmed from the the long-standing argument in college football over which team has the loudest stadium.
“I wasn’t into football -- I was into hockey -- so I wanted to know how loud our hockey stadium was, while also learning a little bit more about acoustics,” said Boyd. In doing so, she hoped to also determine whether the crowd noise was detrimental to communications on the field.
For her acoustic survey, Boyd measured the noise levels during four college hockey games played by the University of Nebraska-Omaha team at Omaha’s Century Link Center from November 2014 through March 2015. She modelled her study off of a similar 2011 study by Andrew Barnard, a professor at Michigan Technological University, that evaluated the noise levels during college football games. As hockey stadiums have closed roofs rather than open ones, they have the potential to amplify sound by dint of their increased surface area.
For the loudest game, which was a rivalry match with St. Cloud University, the average loudness equivalent level in the student section was 95.5 decibels – the equivalent of hearing a jackhammer from 50 feet away – with a peak of 132 decibels, the equivalent of a jet engine about 100 feet away.
Not surprisingly, Boyd said, noise levels in the student section were consistently louder than the others. When the noise levels were synchronized with game events, Boyd found that there wasn’t a strong correlation between decibel level and goals scored by the home team.
“The loudest game was December 12, and we won that one by one goal, so I think there wasn’t enough data to see whether loudness was correlated with how many goals they achieved during the game.” In post-game surveys given to the UNO players after each game, Boyd said that the majority reported that the crowd was loud but not distracting -- “about 70% between silent and loud” -- and that the noise levels didn’t prevent them from communicating with their teammates or coach while in play.
Future research for Boyd involves potentially measuring the sound levels at the new UNO stadium, Baxter Arena, to gauge if the venues differ acoustically and whether the players prefer one stadium over another.
Presentation #1aNS7, "Measurements and player surveys of crowd noise levels during college hockey games" by Brenna Boyd and Lily Wang, will be take place on Monday, Nov. 2, at 10:15 AM in Grand Ballroom 1. The abstract can be found by searching for the presentation number here: https://asa2015fall.abstractcentral.com/planner.jsp.
ABOUT THE MEETING
The 170th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) will be held Nov. 2-6, 2015, at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront Hotel. It will feature more than 700 presentations on sound and its applications in physics, engineering, music, architecture and medicine. Reporters are invited to cover the meeting remotely or attend in person for free. PRESS REGISTRATION
We will grant free registration to credentialed journalists and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend, contact John Arnst ([email protected], 301-209-3096) who can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips, or background information.
USEFUL LINKS
Main meeting website: http://acousticalsociety.org/content/fall-2015-meetingItinerary planner and technical program: https://asa2015fall.abstractcentral.com/planner.jspHotel site: https://aws.passkey.com/g/20066992
WORLD WIDE PRESS ROOM
In the coming weeks, ASA’s World Wide Press Room will be updated with additional tips on dozens of newsworthy stories and with lay-language papers, which are 300-1200 word summaries of presentations written by scientists for a general audience and accompanied by photos, audio, and video. You can visit the site, beginning in late October, at http://acoustics.org/current-meeting. LIVE MEDIA WEBCAST
A press briefing featuring a selection of newsworthy research will be webcast live from the conference on Tuesday, Nov. 3. Topics and time of webcast to be announced. To register, visit www.aipwebcasting.com.
ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world's leading journal on acoustics), Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year. For more information about ASA, visit our website at http://www.acousticalsociety.org.
Meeting Link: 170th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA)
RSS