Vibration and Noise Assessment of Prefabricated Crush Rubber Sinusoidal Rumble Strips

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to obtain the shape and material of a rubber sinusoidal rumble strip that reduces the noise produced outside the vehicle and does not affect the sound and vibration performance inside the vehicle. Considering the role of rubber rumble strips in reducing the noise created outside the car and also the vibration and sound produced inside the car, software simulation and field study were used to achieve the desired results. Car performance modeling has been done in Simulink software in the form of signal response of wheels and car body to bumps. By the field tests, the grooved and raised rumble strips commonly used on road surfaces, as well as the prefabricated sinusoidal rumble strips produced of crush rubber with dimensions taken from the simulation test, were tested. For 100 km/h speed, conventional grooved strips and sinusoidal strips with wavelengths of 35 cm and amplitudes of 0.6 cm and 1 cm have yielded the highest values of vibration amplitude. For a speed of 120 km/h, a sinusoidal design with a wavelength of 35 cm and an amplitude of 1 cm has given the best results. In the field study, at all speeds examined, sinusoidal strips produced far less noise than the two common modes (grooved and raised) outside the vehicle. It was concluded that the use of rubber sinusoidal strips will be most desirable on urban highways with a speed of about 100 km/h, especially for roads in the vicinity of residential areas.