FEM-BEM analysis of tyre-pavement noise on porous asphalt surfaces with different textures

Abstract

Pavement surface characteristics such as surface texture and acoustic absorption play important roles in tyre-pavement interaction noise. The present study aims to investigate the effects of pavement surface texture and porous surface on tyre-pavement noise using a coupled modelling approach with finite element method–boundary element (FEM-BEM) analysis. A radial tyre model was first built using FEM, and tyre surface accelerations under the excitation from pavement texture were obtained from modal analysis. The radiation sound fields caused by tyre vibration were then solved using BEM for noise prediction. Texture profiles and sound absorption coefficients of different pavement surface types were considered in the analysis. The prediction results were calibrated and validated with the measurements reported in the literature. The results show that, with proper calibration, the proposed numerical model can predict sound pressure levels and overall noise with specific inputs of surface texture spectra and acoustic absorption spectra. In general, the surface type with the higher texture levels usually generates greater noise for both porous and non-porous surfaces. The overall noise decreases with the increase of porosity under the same surface texture condition. However, the noise variation due to different sound adsorption coefficients of porous pavement is not as significant as the effect of surface texture on noise.

Keywords:

• Tyre-pavement noise
• finite element method
• boundary element method
• surface texture
• sound absorption