Noise Pollution Analysis of Wind Turbines in Rural Areas

This paper is mainly focused on noise pollution problems related to the use of wind turbines. The installed turbines are Vestas V52 and the farm map under study is a typical rural area in south Italy, in which a wind farm has been recently installed and made operative. Since the area is rural and the number of vehicles per hour is negligible, noise emitted by roads does not affect the prediction on turbines effect. The paper deals with a predictive software approach and the experimental analysis of frequency spectra and time history of the acoustical noise produced by wind turbines. In the software framework, several simulations have been performed, introducing different operating conditions and simulating more turbines in a symmetric array, giving a first description of the results that can be achieved in terms of noise mapping in more complex configurations of wind farms. The possibility to obtain important information about the operating conditions and maintenance status of the turbine from the frequency spectra and time history analysis is reported.