Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

A comparative study of two methods for measuring attenuation values of personal hearing protection devices

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  • Noise induced hearing loss is a subject of growing concern. Over the past 15 years, several well-documented studies have been completed which express the relationships between industrial noise exposure and damage to normal and pathological ears. This research has provided knowledge of considerable importance to developing successful hearing conservation programs. Many studies have presented the necessity of proper use of personal hearing protection devices. However, the accuracy of procedures for testing hearing protection devices remains questionable. The purpose of this study was to document a need for increased research on hearing conservation and offer additional information which may help in developing more accurate testing procedures for personal hearing protection devices. The question investigated in this study was: Can the attenuation factors of personal hearing protection devices be measured with probe-ear microphone measurement instruments, with the same accuracy as the present accepted method ANSI standard (ANSI S3.19-1974)? The test procedure used three insert type personal hearing protection devices on 15 human subjects (30 ears), ages 18-41. Each subject was tested with both the subjective test method and the objective test method for each of the three types of hearing protection used. Data collected for each test method was then compared with group mean, as well as the manufacturer's published specifications, to compare accuracy between test methods. This study determined that the present ANSI S3-1974, subjective test method, provided results which were closer to the manufacturer's published attenuation factors than that data which was recorded using the objective probe-ear microphone instrument. It was noted, even though the mean attenuation factors for the objective test method, that were considerably lower than that of the subjective method, that the overall consistency of data appeared to be more accurate using the objective method. It is recommended that further studies be conducted to provide a better procedure for using the probe-ear microphone evaluation for measuring the attenuation factors of personal hearing protection devices.
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