Relating Road Roughness and Vehicle Speeds to Human Whole Body Vibration and Exposure Limits

Abstract

Every road authority targets good ride quality in their pavement management. Ride quality depends strongly on the experienced in-vehicle vibration, induced by road roughness. International Roughness Index (IRI) is the most common way to describe road roughness, while ISO 2631-1 defines how to quantify human whole-body vibration (WBV), experienced by the driver and the passengers during the ride, in relation to health and comfort. IRI is defined by means of a quarter car model. In this paper the same model is used to get a relationship between road roughness, speeds and vertical human WBV. The new EU Physical Agents Directive—Vibration (PAD—V) contains action and exposure limits for WBV, with respect to the exposure of professional drivers. The derived relationship, therefore, helps us to use ISO 2631 and PAD-V to justify management policies for roughness and speed limits, for usage in IRI-based pavement management systems.

Keywords:

• Pavement management
• Road roughness
• Speed
• Whole-body vibration
• Ride quality