Tyre/road noise on different road pavements: Synergetic influence of acoustical absorbing coefficient and surface texture

As is well known tyre/road noise has an outstanding importance for social consequences. For this reason, motor vehicle and pavement industries together with research institutes deal with this topic and many standards are issued in order to specify the construction parameters needed to obtain higher performance. The phenomena involved in tyre/road noise depend on many factors among which one can remark pavement absorbing properties, surface texture and tyre properties. In the light of the above, the goal of this paper is confined to the analysis of the relations among normal acoustical absorbing coefficients, surface texture and tyre-road noise. In order to analyse the reciprocal influences, an experimental campaign was designed and performed on some different pavement typologies. Acoustical absorption coefficients and texture parameters (texture levels, power spectra, etc) were surveyed. The results were analysed and appreciable relationships among pavement characteristics (sound absorption and texture levels) were detected and interpreted.