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Sound Exposure Level – What is it and how is it calculated?

How is Sound Exposure Level calculated?

Sound Exposure Level, or SEL, is an Leq which is normalised to 1 second. The SEL can be used to compare the energy of noise events which have different time durations.

SEL is also referred to as LE.

The equation for calculating SEL is:

Where time is the exposure time of the Leq value expressed in seconds.