A new approach for the evaluation of the relationship between road texture and rolling noise

The available literature on tyre/road noise focuses mainly on the estimation of broadband CPX and SPB levels from road texture data, regardless of the spectral content of noise. Moreover, while traditional AC and SMA road surfaces have been widely studied during the past decades, a lack of knowledge on rubberized road surfaces still remains. This work addresses the issue of the influence of road texture on rolling noise, measured according the CPX method on different experimental rubberized road surfaces, which use crumb rubber to modify the properties of pavements. The results are analysed in one-third octave bands. Correlation coefficients were calculated for every couple of texture and CPX band on each surface, and tyre influence was also taken into account using a simple tyre envelopment model already available in literature. Results show that the correlation coefficient of different pavements follows a similar pattern for different kind of pavements, with two distinct zones of correlation, relative to the different sound generation processes involved in rolling noise, but also highlights some differences among road surfaces, especially for high frequency noise.