Server noise: Health hazard and its reduction using active noise control

Abstract

Noise is everywhere and can be serious problem in industry. It has been observed that noisy working atmosphere inhibits the effective work. Besides resulting in loss of concentration and low work output, noise at workplace also results in serious health problems. In IT industry, which is generally considered to be a white collared workplace, some workers are subjected to the severe server noise. The prolonged exposure to server noise may lead to many adverse health impacts such as headache, fatigue, stress, anxiety, etc. However, the general perception of worker is that he does not require any ear protection. But in long run, continuous exposure to server noise may even lead to early hearing loss which is gradual process and difficult to detect in time. So, it is important to protect a person in server room from noise coming from the server. In this paper, active noise control (ANC) has been applied to the server noise. The noise of the server (installed in the department) is recorded and its noise level is observed to be 65 dB. The prolonged exposure to this much of noise level poses health hazard. The FxLMS algorithm has been used in active noise control system and simulation results show that there is significant improvement in the noise level.