Amsterdam Airport Schiphol has organized a competition to design a noise mitigating measure along the 'Polderbaan' runway. Its main goal is to reduce the low frequency (LF) ground noise from starting aircraft. The winning concept is a flexible parabolic shaped noise barrier positioned relatively close to the runway. There is a large distance between the runway and the city of Hoofddorp, so the meteorology and the ground have an important effect on the sound propagation. A numerical evaluation, using a PE model, predicts substantial attenuation for downwind conditions. For a typical downwind situation and a barrier height of 14 meters, a reduction of 6,5 dB is expected in the 31 Hz octave band. TNO has conducted scale model experiments for comparison with the PE model results. The scale model experiments were conducted in a wind tunnel in order to account for the meteorological effects. It is concluded that the PE calculations match with the scale model results. Therefore the PE model is preferred over conventional models, which predict a substantially lower reduction, for the propagation and attenuation of ground noise in situations where meteorological effects are important.
