Development, calibration and validation of a model for the acoustic field generated by a ship in port

The environmental impact of ships operating in harbors of port cities is gaining more and more attention, in particular in those situations where a significant number of large ships is moored close to densely habited are-as. The rising concern for environmental pollution effects calls for investigations into the impact of industrial and commercial activities on citizens living and working in the proximity. In this context, ports and ships, with their dimensions (and with the installed powers for propulsion and hull and hotel services) are a matter of par-ticular concern. In fact, the operation of ships in large ports generates a significant impact on air quality and noise levels of surrounding areas. Focusing on acoustic issues, the present paper reports a model based on the Ray Tracing technique built and calibrated in order to obtain a tool capable of predicting the acoustic field generated by the operations of the ships. A re-analysis of data recorded during a campaign previously carried out in the Port of Naples has been carried out for the calibration and validation of the model. The final aim is to obtain a tool able to investigate continuously the acoustic impact of ships operation in any point around the harbor and the effect of possible countermeasures against noise generation and/or propa-gation in the area.