FAQs

Silencers absorb and reduce noise emitted from machinery and other sources for the safety of everyone exposed and for regulatory compliance.

Noise is of primary concern in workplaces because it is one of the most common occupational health hazards. Constant exposure to a noisy environment has been medically linked to annoyance, irritability, stress, tension and hearing loss. Hearing loss is very serious and is the main health concern in heavy industrial and manufacturing environments. For the safety of all those exposed to high levels of noise (85dBA and above), silencers are installed to reduce noise to acceptable levels.

It depends on how many hours in a day a person might be exposed to the noise. Generally, the acceptable level is 85dBA for an 8 hour shift. As it is important to identify work locations where there are noise problems and the employees who may be affected, several instruments are available for measuring noise such as the sound level meter or the noise dosimeter. If these are not readily available, there are certain ‘common sense’ indicators that could be used as a guide. For example, is it louder than a busy city’s traffic? Do people have to raise their voices to talk to someone 3ft away?

Control valves are generally at their noisiest where pressure reduction is involved. As a pressure drop is taken in a control valve, most of the energy inherent in the stream is lost as heat but some of it is converted to noise. In recent years, control valve manufacturers have made accompanying trims that attempt to reduce this noise but since the overall noise is still dependent on proper valve selection, this technology has met varied results. Using a fluid kinetics diffuser with a control valve accomplishes the required noise reduction while keeping the flow jets independent as they exit the valve.

Unlike the Fahrenheit scale, dBA is not something we use in our day-to-day conversations. To help better understand it, here are several analogies to common sounds we are all used to!