Application of acoustic metasurfaces for reduction of broadband noise generated by tire-pavement interaction

Abstract

Noise pollution by traffic is the most widespread environmental problems that cause sleep disturbance, hearing damage, even cardiovascular disease. The primary noise sources of the vehicle are the engine, exhaust, aeroacoustics, and tire-pavement interaction. Among them, a dominant noise within automobiles occurs from the tire-pavement interaction. Most noise suppression efforts aim to use sound absorbers or cavity resonators to narrow the bandwidth of acoustic frequencies using acoustic foams or Helmholtz resonators. However, the effectiveness of existing methods of noise reduction is limited by the design constraints and material itself. In this study, we propose artificially designed reflecting acoustic metasurfaces to control and isolate sound generated by a moving car. The proposed design can significantly reduce the noise arising from tire-pavement interaction over a broadband of acoustic frequencies under 2 kHz and over a wide range of vehicle speeds. A set of experiments with lab-scale and field tests have demonstrated that the lightweight metamaterial displaced inside the tires gives 2—5 dB stronger reduction of 200—300 Hz noise inside the car cabin than currently used acoustic foam. The proposed approach can be extended to other objects generating low-frequency mechanical noise. [Work supported by the National Science Foundation under EFRI Grant No. 1741677.]