Setting of on board noise sources in numerical simulation of airborne outdoor ship noise

Nowadays, noise pollution is more and more increasing owing to the growth of industrial production and road and rail traffic. Harbours are certainly ones of the most sensitive areas as, in the last decades, they have become sites for development of industrial activities and goods trades, with a following unavoidable increase in noise pollution. Ship is one of the noise source that most contributes to the overall noise pollution in harbour areas. A recent European research project called BESST is aiming to improve knowledge about ship noise in order to propose proper actions to reduce noise pollution and new uniform criteria and limits for noise radiated to European harbours. Among the various aspects that the scientific community should examine, determination of a proper computational tool to predict outdoor noise generated by ships right in ship’s design phase is one of the main things. In the present study, carried out at the University of Trieste, an operative procedure for predicting ship’s outdoor noise in harbour is proposed. Procedure is outlined in all its steps from the pre to the post processing phase giving more emphasis to the noise sources setting within the numerical simulation. Effectiveness of the method has been proved by application to a case study.