Area reductions in the piping system will cause the wall flows to accelerate and create higher shear velocities. Most of the turbulent effects will decay rapidly and not propagate more than 10-20 pipe diameters. However, there is an additional acoustic field which is produced by the turbulence, which can propagate further distances and lead to higher external noise caused by area expansions and contractions far upstream. Area expansions can be severe as well in terms of the resulting pressure fluctuations in the boundary layer.The pressure fluctuation (rms) of wall pressure is related directly to the area enlargement, where values of d/D greater than 0.3 (d/D > 0.3) tend to produce more severe pressure fluctuations within the fluid and resulting external noise, especially close by the disturbance. As a rule of thumb, within four pipe diameters of an area change, the sound level will be dominated by the turbulence produced by the area change. After just four pipe diameters, sound will be dominated by planar sound waves in most cases. Area expansions tend to cause more internal noise than area contractions.