Laboratory and field evaluation of noise characteristics of porous asphalt pavement

ABSTRACT

The sound absorption coefficient was evaluated for the acoustic performance of the pavement in many studies, which is an evaluation index generated by the non-contact interaction between the tyre and pavement. The impedance tube is not enough to simulate the noise of tyre/pavement interaction. This paper presents the findings of a lab and field evaluation of noise characteristics of porous asphalt pavement on the use of the tyre-rolling-down (TRD) and impedance tube methods as well as OBSI method. The effect of different factors (pavement type, pavement thickness, void ratio, maximum nominal particle size) on the pavement noise were investigated by TRD. It is well synchronised with the impedance tube test and a comprehensive pavement noise evaluation method is formed in lab. Combined with the Grey correlation analysis methods, influence degree of four parameters were analysed and then the correlation between noise level and sound absorption coefficient is tried to establish. Then, the effects of lane distribution and aging, abrasion of road on noise were also investigated at two test sections of in service highway. The lab results demonstrated that A-weighted SPL and maximum absorption coefficient showed better negative correlation under different porosity conditions compared to average absorption coefficient.

KEYWORDS:

• Tyre/pavement noise
• porous asphalt
• sound absorption coefficient
• noise level
• Grey relational analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 51578076] and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [grant number CHD300102219207].