Simulations and measurements on muzzle blast mitigation with sound absorbing barriers

Environmental research is ongoing to predict and to mitigate the noise impact of heavy weapons or explosives. In the densely populated area of the Netherlands this is of particular interest for the Ministry of Defence as the shock waves can propagate over large distances. In this research program the mitigation of shock waves by means of a sound absorbing barrier close to the source has been investigated and tested. The sound propagation and the interaction with a barrier close to the source is non-linear. In this region, a so-called FCT model is used to describe the non-linear phenomena. It is demonstrated and validated that a better shielding of strong shock waves can be obtained by adding absorbing material to the barrier. To predict the sound immission at larger distances the shock waves are propagated further (linearly) with a PE model.