INDUSTRY NEWS
With noise ordinances popping
up in more and more U.S. cities,
counties and states, manufac-
turers such as John Deere are
working to develop machinery
with lower sound emissions.
Deere performs equipment test-
ing at its Noise and Vibration
Laboratory at the Moline
Technology Innovation Center
in Illinois.
VOLUME TURNED UP ON
NOISE CONTROL
Off-road machines facing more limits at city, county, state levels; finding the “borne identity”
can be key to sound reductions
BY DAWN M. GESKE
You could call it a quiet revolu- tion. Over the last decade, sig- nificant improvements have
been made in noise, vibration and
harshness (NVH) as equipment manufacturers have sought to optimize
every facet of their machines, down
to the last bolt and bearing.
But the volume of activity concerning
noise from off-road equipment has been
turned up a notch recently as local and
state noise regulations continue to crop
up throughout the U.S. and the industry
takes another step closer to a possible
nationwide mandate.
At the recent Association of
Equipment Manufacturers (AEM)
Noise and Vibration technical semi-
nar in Schiller Park, Ill., Dr. Noelle
Currey, acoustical engineer at Astec
Industries Inc., explained the differ-
ences between acoustics, sound and
noise. Based in Chattanooga, Tenn.,
Astec manufactures a broad range
of machinery including rock crush-
ing and screening plants, hot mix
asphalt facilities, concrete plants,
horizontal directional drills, gas and
oil drilling rigs, geothermal drills, mill-
ing machines, asphalt pavers, mate-
rial transfer vehicles, trenchers, hor-
izontal directional drills and wood
processing equipment.
