IOA Conference 2018 � City Hall, Cardiff

There a number of acoustics conferences in the UK of
varying shapes and sizes during the year but the major one is that put on by
the UK Institute of Acoustics. Before austerity there used to be two, a spring
conference and an autumn conference, but that�s another story.

This year the conference was held in Cardiff,
the capital of Wales, at the rather impressive City Hall (pictured), which gave
a bit of a Welsh flavour to things including the first formal paper, Noise
Policy in Wales, delivered by Martin McVay from the Welsh Government, and the
first course of the conference dinner which was Welsh Rarebit (basically cheese
on toast).

There were 3 parallel sessions going on (which kept the
conference to a manageable 2 days) consisting of Environmental Noise, Noise and
Vibration Engineering and Physical Acoustics (all day on Day 1 in the three
rooms respectively) followed by Building Acoustics, Wind Farm Noise, Music
Acoustics, Speech and Hearing and Measurements/Instrumentation on the Day 2.

Andy, Malcolm and Tom attended the conference on behalf
of Hayes McKenzie with Tom contributing to the presentation by Malcolm in the
wind farm noise session and Malcolm also contributing to one of the other
presentations.

The Environmental Noise session had two main themes; the
first being BS4142 (more on this topic here), particularly the
acoustic character corrections, with the second being the upcoming Association of Noise Consultants Acoustics, Noise and Ventilation Guide which is
currently out for consultation.

Of particular interest in the Noise and Vibration
session were presentations on noise transmission in sports complexes, where
impulse noise is quite common, and from Dyson on domestic appliance noise,
particularly air handling.

The Physical Acoustic sessions contained a significant
number of papers relating to novel structures for the control of acoustic
waves. The influence of the 3D printer in the construction of such structures
was clearly in evidence with some samples being passed around amongst the
attendees.

Following a well-earned rest for everyone except the
�Young Members Group� who were invited to a �Happy Hour� session, everyone
re-convened at City Hall for a drinks reception and conference dinner with
entertainment by Roger Kelly of CDM-UK who was also one of the delegates.
Towards the end of the evening a number of delegates moved on to a pub nearby
until throwing out time where discussions on the many aspects of acoustics
continued to the early hours in the various conference hotel bars.

The next day continued with more on noise in sports and
fitness centres in the Building Acoustics session together with a demonstration
of how a small change in low frequency noise transmission can have a big effect
on subjective perception (although, of course, low frequency noise transmission
is much more difficult to reduce!). The measurements/instrumentation session presented
the latest in measurement hardware and software with one presentation focussing
on why mobile phone apps should never be used to measure noise in any kind of
even semi-serious manner.

The final session in the main hall was on wind
farm noise with two papers on amplitude modulation of wind turbine noise, one
given by Malcolm who also contributed to the other one. Along with Malcolm and
Tom�s spectacular AM charts, the highlight was Dick Bowdler�s presentation on
the way infrasound has been hyped and mis-represented over the years,
particularly the work of Vladimir Gavreau who patented a number of infrasound
producing devices between 1948 and 1965.