Sonvera
About Sonvera
Sonvera is a noise, vibration, and acoustics engineering practice in Montreal. It specializes in industrial noise, helping industrial clients across Quebec obtain their environmental authorizations, reduce the noise from their mechanical equipment, and meet their workplace noise requirements. Sonvera also works on buildings and construction projects: noise and vibration studies for residential projects near roads and rail lines, sound insulation testing, the acoustic design of offices and institutions, and construction noise studies.
Industrial Noise Control
Sonvera’s founder, Petr Chocensky, has led more than 200 environmental authorization and noise control projects at operating industrial sites, and many more in transportation and building acoustics. The industrial projects include:
- Cement plants, mines, quarries, and sandpits
- Refineries, petrochemical plants, and chemical manufacturing
- Steel, heavy manufacturing, and automotive assembly plants
- Food, paper, and textile processing plants
- Power generation, including gas turbines, wind farms, and solar installations
- Distribution centres and bulk terminals
On an operating site, the difficulty is identifying the equipment responsible for excessive sound levels. Its contribution is often hard to separate from that of the other equipment on the site and from the background sound in the area, such as road traffic or community noise. Without that separation, noise control becomes a matter of trial and error, with the risk of investing in measures that do not achieve the required reduction. Sonvera combines detailed measurements at each piece of equipment with acoustical modelling, precisely quantifying the contribution of each one at the neighbouring dwellings, so that noise control is targeted at the equipment responsible. The measures are then selected for what can realistically be implemented within the operating, maintenance, and safety constraints of the facility.
- At a cement plant in Quebec, several mitigation measures installed earlier had not produced the expected reduction. Measurements of the sound emissions of each piece of equipment identified the dominant contributors and led to a five-year staged mitigation plan.
- At an oilseed processing plant, where the presence of hexane required intrinsically safe instruments, the dominant contributors were identified and the mitigation designed and supervised. An independent audit confirmed sound levels below the regulatory limits.
- At a power station, the assessment for a new site-wide authorization identified degraded steam vent silencers. Replacement units were specified, and their performance was verified after installation.
Background
Petr began his career in 2003 with EKOLA Group, a noise consultancy in the Czech Republic, working on road and rail noise. In 2010 he joined HGC Noise Vibration Acoustics, a Canadian firm specializing in noise and vibration engineering, where he spent sixteen years helping industrial clients bring the sound levels from their facilities within the environmental noise limits. He holds a Ph.D. in civil engineering, with a thesis on tire and road noise, and is a licensed professional engineer with the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec and Professional Engineers Ontario.
Contact Sonvera
Send your project details. Sonvera will confirm the scope and propose the next step.