Chapter 5 - Measurement methods of tire/road noise

Abstract

When a new tire is under development, engineers often need to ensure that the new tire meets the design objectives and targets. One of these design objectives is tire NVH performance that needs to be evaluated after each design stage. In the past decade, with the advances of virtual modeling and testing, some of the physical tests have been partially replaced by these virtual simulations. A complete replacement is not possible at this stage, because virtual evaluation of the NVH performance requires complicated multiphysics simulations. Due to the complexity of these simulation tools for analyzing acoustics and vibrations, evaluating and testing the physical tires is still essential and popular in the industry. The physical tests range from the indoor component level tests in laboratory to the outdoor full vehicle system level tests in proving ground. The main objective of indoor tests is to understand the impact of tire–wheel system on structural borne noise transmission and airborne noise radiation at the component level. The outdoor vehicle level tests share the same objective but at the system level. In this chapter, different indoor and outdoor tests developed over years and used by industry and academia to evaluate tire noise and vibration performance in regard to their generation and transmission are presented.