Abstract
In the evaluation of road roughness and its effects on vehicles response in terms of ride quality, loads induced on pavement, drivers’ comfort, etc., it is very common to generate road profiles based on the equation provided by ISO 8608 standard, according to which it is possible to group road surface profiles into eight different classes. However, real profiles are significantly different from the artificial ones because of the non-stationary feature of the first ones and the not full capability of the ISO 8608 equation to correctly describe the frequency content of real road profiles. In this paper, the international roughness index, the frequency-weighted vertical acceleration awz according to ISO 2631, and the dynamic load index are applied both on artificial and real profiles, highlighting the different results obtained. The analysis carried out in this work has highlighted some limitation of the ISO 8608 approach in the description of performance and conditions of real pavement profiles. Furthermore, the different sensitivity of the various indices to the fitted power spectral density parameters is shown, which should be taken into account when performing analysis using artificial profiles.
Highlights
IntroductionThe evaluation of the ride quality and the assessment of the effects on road vehicles due to the presence of irregularities on road pavements surface [1] are often performed using artificial profiles in order to have a full control over their geometric characteristics (e.g., roughness level, profile length) affecting the phenomenon
Road pavement unevenness may induce detrimental effects such as the reduction in passengers’ comfort and the increment of both dynamic loads on pavements and stress on vehicles’ components.The evaluation of the ride quality and the assessment of the effects on road vehicles due to the presence of irregularities on road pavements surface [1] are often performed using artificial profiles in order to have a full control over their geometric characteristics affecting the phenomenon
In the evaluation of road roughness and its effects on vehicles response in terms of ride quality, loads induced on pavement, drivers’ comfort, etc., it is very common to generate road profiles based on the equation provided by ISO 8608 standard, according to which it is possible to group road surface profiles into eight different classes
Summary
The evaluation of the ride quality and the assessment of the effects on road vehicles due to the presence of irregularities on road pavements surface [1] are often performed using artificial profiles in order to have a full control over their geometric characteristics (e.g., roughness level, profile length) affecting the phenomenon. Starting from the equation provided by ISO 8608 standard for the calculation of fitted power spectral density (PSD) of profile elevations, it is possible to generate random road profiles having different geometric characteristics, belonging to the desired road profile class. Many studies are based on the use of these artificial road profiles in order to evaluate, for example, the dynamic load on road pavements due to roughness [3, 4] or to calculate the transfer function needed to estimate road roughness using vehicle acceleration measurements [5]. Many studies on the design and analysis of vehicle suspensions are often based on the use of artificial profiles [6, 7]
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