The aim of the project is to devise a method of determining the acoustical characteristics of steel-making shops using modern methods in such a way as to permit control of the acoustical environment with a view to reducing the noise to the stipulated levels and in so doing to optimize the noise reduction techniques applied.

Whilst most of the work under the fourth ECSC programme was concerned with identifying major noise sources in the steelmaking industry, such as arc furnaces, blast furnace gas release and rolling-mill cooling lines, the work being mainly concerned with noise reduction at source, it also emerged from a study of propagation in large workshops that the logical follow-up to identifying sources is to study the characteristics of the shops themselves.

However, no overall approach for describing all the sound sources in a given shop or for studying or predicting the propagation of noise to workplaces or the environment emerged from the programme, although such an approach would seem vital since current noise reduction problems demonstrate that a great deal of work remains to be done in identifying sources of noise and that very little information is available on any types of premises other than melting shops - such as rolling mills, which may be long or full of obstacles.

The approach of the project is based on predictive models which permit the simulation of various acoustical situations on the basis of data collected in real situations. These tools should permit optimization of noise reduction systems on the basis of more accurate information obtained from simulation of various types of propagation. By taking notistic approach to a given shop or possibly an entire steelworks, it will be possible to optimize noise-reduction costs as a whole while maintaining maximum efficiency.