Emergency services and defence
ISVR Consulting has a long history of providing advice, consultancy and solutions to the noise and vibration problems faced by the emergency services and in the defence industries.
Services for the Emergency Services
We provide a comprehensive range of specialist services for the measurement, assessment and control of noise and vibration for the Police, Fire and Rescue, Ambulance and Coastguard services covering:
A National Police Air Service EC135 helicopter
- firearms training and hearing protection on indoor and outdoor ranges, pyrotechnics and explosive method of entry
- wired and wireless earpieces and headsets used with Airwave (Tetra) hand-portable and mobile radio terminals
- call handlers and dispatchers with headsets in police, fire, ambulance and coastguard control rooms,
- road vehicles at speed and with sirens
- motorcyclists under helmets, including communications systems, and off-road vehicles
- rigid inflatable boats (RIBs) and launches
- helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, under crew flying helmets
- dog handlers
- firefighters using vehicles, pumps, breathing apparatus, and other equipment
- vehicle workshops, print rooms, plant, compressor and computer server rooms similar to civilian equivalents
Services for the defence industries
On the firing range
An Acoustic Test Fixture (ATF)
Within the ISVR we have a unique range of capabilities for the measurement and investigation of noise and vibration for the military and defence industries:
Some examples of our projects include
- reduction of engine noise and silencer design for large military vehicles
- investigation of vibration problems in the propulsion system of a naval vessel
- investigation of noise exposures and speech communications problems affecting crew members in a tracked vehicle
- calculation of hearing protection zones for dismounted infantry around a cannon on a military vehicle
- laboratory measurements of the transmission loss of ship bulkheads
- high-intensity fatigue testing of aircraft components
- assessment of noise and hearing protection for firearms training and general use
- evaluation of sound-restoration hearing protection and headsets with talk-through or hear-through systems in impulsive and continuous noise
- studies of audio situational awareness and sound source localization
- measurements of the insertion loss of hearing protection and flight helmets using miniature microphones in real ears or an Acoustic Test Fixture (ANSI/ASA S12.42-2010)
- measurement of impulsive noise, including to DefStan 00-027
- measurements of the effect of wearing anti-flash hoods on the noise attenuation of earmuffs
See also:
- The effect of wearing an anti-flash hood on the noise attenuation of earmuffs. G S Paddan and M C Lower. Industrial Health, 59(4), 204–219, 2021. (pdf 2.4 MB) (Open access under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0).
- Factors affecting sound exposure from firing an SA80 high-velocity rifle (Accepted manuscript). G S Paddan and M C Lower. Applied Acoustics, 109, 61-68, August 2016.
- Sound levels and exposures from a high velocity rifle (pdf version of Powerpoint slide show), Mike Lower and Gurmail Paddan, 18 October 2017, or
- Sound levels and exposures from a high velocity rifle (Powerpoint slide show), Mike Lower and Gurmail Paddan, 18 October 2017.
Note the pdf version is widely compatible with most browsers but will not play two short audio files; the Powerpoint version will replay the audio files, but requires Microsoft Powerpoint or the Powerpoint viewer which is free of charge.