Effects of acoustic characteristics on annoyance of aircraft flyover noise

Aircraft flyover noise is a major source of community annoyance. The annoyance is affected by acoustic characteristics including onset rate, peak sound level and duration time. A simulated annoyance test was conducted on 30 subjects to analyze the effects from the three acoustic characteristics on annoyance. Results have shown that onset rate and duration time significantly determined annoyance while peak level had little effect. According to the importance of the exposure time, time above 75 dB was used as a new metric to illustrate the integral effects of onset rate and duration time. The curve of time above 75 dB was well fitted to an exponential-decrease equation which follows the sensory adaptation effect.