A Study of Traffic Noise Reduction Performance of Arc Pavement Roads and Traffic Flow

Abstract

Asphalt Rubber Concrete (ARC) pavement has shown an excellent performance of noise reduction in terns of reducing the power of air pumping, absorbing sound power, depressing carcass vibration and changing sound reflection geometry. This research is to investigate the traffic noise reduction performance of a segment of test highway with ARC pavement in Saskatchewan, Canada. Before and after the highway section was repaved, a series of traffic noise level measurements combining with traffic flow monitoring are conducted in order to compare the sound performance of ARC and conventional pavements. A relationship between the noise level and corresponding traffic flow conditions of ARC pavement is established. The energetic averaging method is employed to study the relationship between traffic noise level and traffic flow condition. The two noise levels of 24-hour's time averaged and Statistical Pass-By noise levels indicated that the ARC pavement has a better sound performance over that of conventional pavement in terms of traffic noise reduction. The traffic noise reduction applicability of ARC pavement under various traffic flow conditions is also performed in this research.