Abstract
Noise is one of the most important environmental problems related to road traffic. During the last decades, the noise emitted by the engines and powertrains of vehicles was greatly reduced and tires became a clearly dominant noise source. The article describes the concept of low noise poroelastic road surfaces that are composed of mineral and rubber aggregate bound by polyurethane resin. Those surfaces have a porous structure and are much more flexible than standard asphalt or cement concrete pavements due to high content of rubber aggregate and elastic binder. Measurements performed in several European countries indicate that such surfaces decrease tire/road noise between 7 dB and 12 dB with respect to reference surfaces such as dense asphalt concrete or stone matrix asphalt. Furthermore, poroelastic road surfaces ascertain the rolling resistance of car tires, which is comparable to classic pavements. One of the unforeseen properties of the poroelastic road surfaces is their ability to decrease the risks related to car fires with fuel spills. The article presents the road and laboratory results of noise, rolling resistance, and fire tests performed on a few types of poroelastic road surfaces.
Highlights
Tire/road noise is the dominant noise source for cars that are already at low speeds
PERSwas wasitsitspotential potential reduction tire/road noise, which is of the main environmental problems related to road traffic
The noise properties of poroelastic road surfaces (PERS) were testedwere bothtested in laboratory vibration related mechanisms to its elasticity)
Summary
Tire/road noise is the dominant noise source for cars that are already at low speeds (typically as low as 30–40 km/h). Abating traffic noise is mainly about reducing tire/road noise. One can (and should) work on the tire properties to reduce noise, and on the pavement. To reduce the tire/road noise, one can only “turn on three buttons”: the pavement texture (minimum of megatexture and maximum of macrotexture), the absorption by the pavement (high accessible void content and a proper shape and length of the “channels” formed by the voids) and the elasticity of the pavement. Low noise pavements based on an optimized texture or a high void content do exist and are even widespread in some countries, such as the Netherlands. The third possibility to reduce noise, making the pavement elastic, has hardly been exploited so far in commercially available pavements
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