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manicdee33 t1_j98rzsh wrote

The USA is best known as the country that will do anything to avoid using the metric system.

Paper this article is based on: https://asa.scitation.org/doi/10.1121/10.0016878

> Significant results include: (a) the solid rocket boosters' ignition overpressure is particularly intense in the direction of the pad flame trench exit; (b) post-liftoff maximum overall levels range from 127 to 136 dB, greater than pre-launch predictions; and (c) the average maximum one-third-octave spectral peak occurred at 20 Hz, causing significant deviation between flat and A-weighted levels.

I'm just lost on how they quantify the "crackling quality" :D

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unpluggedcord t1_j98ubi6 wrote

Fwiw the national measuring system is metric, it changed in the 70s. But nobody adopted it.

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Primary_Skill3749 t1_j999970 wrote

I don’t think that’s completely accurate as many scientific industries like medicine use metric as a standard in the U.S. Even nasa was using metric well before the 1970s.

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unpluggedcord t1_j999dgj wrote

I’m referring to the law that was passed by congress and signed by the president.

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simpliflyed t1_j9cc3u4 wrote

I think they meant the bit where you said nobody adopted it. Pedantic either way!

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billsil t1_j99epup wrote

Depends how much it pops.

136 dB is really loud. Also Bels are not really a unit. You take the logarithm of a pressure relative to 20 microPascals (the threshold of human hearing), so it's unitless. Deci-bels are 1/10 as large as a Bel and just make the numbers easier. Otherwise, we'd be talking about 13.6 Bels.

Beyond that I understand part of it. An octave is a power of 2, so 20 Hz to 40 Hz. The 1/3 octave part means that between 2 octaves, you have 3 bands. So for 20 Hz, the range of interest is 20/2^1/3 to 20*2^1/3 (or 15.9 to 25.2 Hz).

The USA is best known as the country that will do anything to avoid using the metric system.

That quote is metric and English friendly.

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freds_got_slacks t1_j9bdpqg wrote

https://asa.scitation.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/aip/journals/content/jel/2023/jel.2023.3.issue-2/10.0016878/20230211/images/large/10.0016878.figures.online.f4.jpeg

In this figure from that paper, while the flat peak is 120 dB centred around 20 Hz, with an A-weighting this only translates to about peak 95 dBA around 200 to 1000 Hz.

Measurements for occupational safety are done with A weighting, but would there be any safety concern with an unweighted 127 dB SPL at 20 Hz? or is A weighting still sufficient ?

Edit: higher res figure

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