Measuring the tyre/pavement noise using laboratory tyre rolling-down method

ABSTRACT

An optimised design of pavement considering the noise reduction performance is desired to reduce the tyre/pavement noise. A cost-effective and user-friendly laboratory test method for measuring the tyre/pavement noise pressure spectrum is deemed necessary towards an optimised design taking into account the noise reduction performance. In this paper, a novel laboratory tyre/pavement noise measurement method, namely tyre rolling-down (TR) method, is developed to quantify the tyre/pavement noise pressure spectrum. The analysis of noise generation mechanism on TR shows that it is capable of simulating the tyre/pavement noise generated through tyre vibration and aerodynamic effect. The tyre/pavement noise wave band is identified by conducting an experiment where different mixture samples are compacted in laboratory to generate a reasonable range of tyre/pavement noise levels. In addition, a 2-Dimensional Image Texture Analysis Method (2D-ITAM) is applied to measure surface texture properties of these specimens, which are input parameters of the empirical rolling noise prediction models. The total A-weighting tyre/pavement noise pressure levels from TR are compared and verified with those from empirical rolling noise prediction models based on pavement surface texture spectrum and acoustic absorption coefficient. It is shown that TR results correlate well with those calculated from the prediction models and could be considered as an effective method to characterise tyre/pavement noise in laboratory during the stage of asphalt pavement design.

KEYWORDS:

• Tyre/pavement noise
• tyre rolling-down method
• image texture analysis method
• noise prediction model

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of Professor Hussain U. Bahia, Professor Massimo Losa and Dr. Nima Roohi Sefidmazgi. The results and opinions presented are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the sponsoring agencies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

De Chen http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5047-2944

Additional information

Funding

This research was sponsored by the Research Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 51808462 and 51578076), the China Research Fund of ‘State Key Laboratory of Rail Transit Engineering Informatization (FSDI)' (grant number SKLK2018-09), ‘Key Laboratory for Special Area Highway Engineering of Ministry of Education' (310821171103) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2682016CX009).