Study of Noise Originating from Selected Bridge Expansion Joints

Road noise constitutes one of the most adverse impacts of road traffic on the environment. Noise that is particularly annoying for local inhabitants is recorded in the vicinity of engineering structures where various types of expansion joints are used [1–3]. There are currently many road connections being built in Poland, including a total of almost ten thousand expansion joints. The authors of this article attempt to determine the noise differences of several of the most commonly used expansion joints – single-, double-, and multi-module, block and finger expansion joint described as one of the most advantageous from the acoustic point of view. This study also attempts to determine the im-pact of expansion joint types on the noise level in comparison to the road section not equipped with these devices, which was adopted as the base noise level.