Effects of Exposure to Intense Tones in Water While Wearing Wet-Suit Hoods

Abstract

Wet-suited and hooded divers were exposed to 3500 hertz tone pulses (25% and 50% duty cycles) at sound pressure levels up to 192 dB above 20 micropascal for durations of up to one hour. Temporary auditory-threshold shifts were measured. An exposure of sixty minutes at 191 dB produced thresholds shifts of 40 dB (two minutes post-exposure) but exposures at lower sound pressures for twenty minutes or less produced moderate or no threshold shifts. Non-auditory effects that were startling to the divers when first encountered were also investigated. They included spraying of water within face masks, a perceptible pressure, and visual-field displacements. Although annoying, none of the non-auditory effects was apparently immediately harmful to the divers. Keywords: Noise, Stress physiology.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 22, 1988
Accession Number
ADA201640

Entities

People

  • Paul F. Smith

Organizations

  • Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acoustic Propagation
  • Acoustics
  • Biomedical Research
  • Classification
  • Divers
  • Diving
  • Ear
  • Frequency
  • Navy
  • Radiation Pressure
  • Safety
  • Security
  • Sensation
  • Sound Pressure
  • Standing Waves
  • Submarine Bases
  • Wet Suits

Readers

  • Auditory Neuroscience/Auditory Physiology.
  • Materials Science
  • Mathematics or Statistics